Watch Your Back

In Parlato’s implausible latest (after What Waits in the Woods), a married couple’s relationship dissolves after their daughter disappears. Psychiatrist Eve Thayer has been tapped to lead the medical staff at a new psychiatric center in the Boston suburb of Graybridge, leaving her little time to help her husband, Nathan, with their infant daughter, Rosewyn. As a result, Eve and Nathan have come to depend on their kindly neighbor as a primary babysitter. One night, someone breaks into the couple’s house and kidnaps Rosewyn, and the fallout exposes cracks in Eve and Nathan’s relationship. Friends and relatives offer the couple unsolicited advice, much of it leading Eve and Nathan to suspect the worst in each other. Meanwhile, detective Rita Myers of the Graybridge PD takes charge of the case and uncovers a bizarre campaign to target and humiliate the couple. Parlato smartly splits the novel into chapters narrated by Eve, Nathan, and Rita, using each perspective switch to cast things in a new light. By the time the finale arrives, however, readers will be frustrated with how many contrivances it took to get there. This fails to stick the landing. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (Dec.)