Gone Too Long

In this gripping, gut-wrenching thriller from Edgar-winner Roy (The Disappearing), a member of the local Ku Klux Klan in Simmonsville, Ga., kidnaps 10-year-old Beth, the daughter of a single mother, in a bungled attempt to scare Beth’s Puerto Rican babysitter and the babysitter’s family into leaving the area. Unwilling to kill Beth, her captor holds her prisoner in the basement of an outbuilding on a remote property used for Klan business. Seven years later, in 2017, Imogene Coulter, a foe of the Klan who’s descended from a prominent Klansman, by chance discovers the basement, where she finds a boy, Christopher, who has been held there since infancy with Beth, and takes him home. Shortly before, Beth had escaped and is in hiding. The tension rises as Beth tries to survive and Imogene fights to safeguard Christopher (and herself) from his captors. Vividly told though somewhat implausibly plotted, Roy’s tragic cautionary tale demonstrates what can happen when decent people allow themselves to be bullied into turning a blind eye while others do their worst, including murder. Greg Iles’s fans will find a lot to like. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (June)