Here and Gone

This new novel by Beck (a pen name of Irish crime novelist Stuart Neville) begins with Audra Kinney on the run with her two children, escaping an abusive husband and monstrous mother-in-law. While driving through Arizona, she gets pulled over by local sheriff Bob Whiteside, for what seems like a routine traffic stop. He arrests her on a fake drugs charge, knocks her around in a cell, and tries to convince her that she was alone when arrested. When the media get wind of the case, Whiteside easily manipulates them into demonizing Audra as a crazy person who’s killed her children and hidden their bodies. The soft-spoken, ultracool Danny Lee, an ex–hit man for a San Francisco tong whose late wife suffered a fate very similar to Audra’s, is a frighteningly self-contained good-bad guy who gives both Audra and this riveting thriller new hope for justice. The novel is rife with highly emotional moments, and actor-narrator Craden performs them with full intensity, matching Beck’s descriptions of Audra’s overwhelming unhappiness and lack of self-esteem at home and her sense of empowerment leading to her breakaway. Trapped by Whiteside, she gives vent to frustration, fear, and fury. The quick-to-anger sheriff is full of smarmy good-ole-boy charm (with an accent to match) when dealing with the press, but there are moments when he can’t keep his self-loathing under wraps. A Crown hardcover. (June)