The Undercurrent

A new mother fixates on a girl’s long-ago disappearance from her Austin, Tex., neighborhood in Sawyer’s arresting debut. Bee Rowan; her troubled twin, Gus; and her girlhood crush Leo Nastasi were once close, but she hasn’t spoken to either of them in years. In 2011, Leo tracks down Bee in Maine, where she lives with her husband and eight-week-old daughter, Attie, and lets her know Gus wants to talk. She returns with Attie to Austin, where, to Bee’s surprise, Gus is staying at their mother Mary’s house. There, she finds hidden in her childhood bedroom a letter to Leo from Deecie Jeffries, the girl who disappeared in 1987. The discovery prompts Bee and Leo to finally confront long-ago events that drove a wedge between them. In chapters set in 1987, a teenage Leo, though quiet and kind, sets fires and acts out at school, leading his mother to believe he might have had something to do with Deecie’s disappearance. Meanwhile, Mary worries her abusive husband might be responsible after finding a Polaroid print in their garage that hints at child pornography. Sawyer constructs a spellbinding mystery as she toggles between timelines and the viewpoints of three very different mothers. This one leaves a mark. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Oct.)