The Bracelet

After her boyfriend abandons her and moves across the country, 30-year-old Abby Howell, a nurse in Boston, decides to make a radical life change and accept a job in Pakistan compiling nursing statistics for the U.N. En route, she witnesses a murder in Geneva, and though she’s shaken, she thrusts it out of her mind and pushes on to her final destination. Upon arrival in Pakistan, she meets Nick, a brazen journalist for the New York Times, who reveals that he’s working on a story about human trafficking. As Abby gets involved with Nick, she learns more about this lucrative and cruel black market, and begins to draw connections between the murder victim, an international trafficking ring, and her new acquaintances. Gately, a nurse and humanitarian worker, has a keen understanding of conflict zones and human trafficking, and the resultant detail is vibrantly deployed throughout her newest novel (after Lipstick in Afghanistan). Unfortunately, transparent plot twists and underdeveloped characters fail to mask what is, at heart, a dramatized humanitarian treatise. Agent: Judy Hansen, Hansen Literary, and Cynthia Manson, Cynthia Manson Literary. (Nov.)