Don't you know that you're toxic?

Book Review:  Gone Without a Trace by Mary Torjussen

Hannah returns home from a training session in Oxford, to find that her boyfriend of four years, Matt, is gone.  His belongings have been removed from their house and her belongings have been rearranged to the way they were when the house was hers alone.  Every text she's ever sent him has been deleted from her phone, as well as every photo of him.  His social media accounts have disappeared.  She can find no trace of him, except for one, an old social media photo that he was never tagged in.  

She's desperate to know what happened.  Consumed by the need to know where Matt is, she starts slipping at work -- and it's noticed.  Once on-track for a promotion, she finds herself in danger of losing her job.  It doesn't matter though -- she's certain that once she finds Matt, everything will be okay.  Until she does -- and it isn't.

At first, I questioned whether Matt was a real person or a figment of her imagination, but he's real.  Hannah is an unreliable narrator though -- there are plenty of hints to indicate this throughout the book.  There's more to her history with Matt than she is willing to admit -- and that's what kept me reading.  Hannah is not a likeable character.  She has toxic relationship with her best friend (also not a likeable character) and there's something amiss with her parents.  And it's simply hard to relate to someone so fixated on someone else.  I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened between Matt and Hannah that was so bad that he felt the need to disappear so completely.  I had a guess and I was close to the truth.

The ending offers a twist with all sorts of questions.  A solid but tough read.  I don't always have to like the main character to like the book -- I loved Gone Girl and The Perfect Ghost, but I still don't know how to sum up my reaction to this one.  Uncomfortable?  It was well-written and I'll admit that I flipped its pages furiously, to see what happened next.  Maybe it's the fact that Hannah is so unrelatable for me -- Gone Girl's Amy was a monster, yes, but there were parts of her story I could empathize with, and The Perfect Ghost was so brilliantly written that I had to re-read it immediately.  I suppose what troubles me about Hannah is that I don't understand her obsession with Matt -- he's not the first guy to leave her -- but he is the first guy to disappear.  Maybe if he'd just moved out but left a note, it would have been different?  

Between love and madness lies obsession . . .

Book Review:  Prized Possessions by L.R. Wright

Two plots collide in the 5th Karl Alberg mystery.  The book begins with a tense scene between Charlie O'Brea and his wife Emma -- and then jumps ahead, one year later.  Emma seems content, Charlie seems . . . haunted.  One stormy night, Charlie doesn't return home and Emma is worried.  When there's still no word from him the next day, Emma contacts his office, only to discover that he no longer works there.  On compassionate leave after the death of his father, Staff Sergeant Karl Alberg agrees to investigate.

Outside of town, a troubled young man loses his temper when he thinks that a pretty college girl has insulted him.  He tries to make amends afterwards but, again feels slighted.  He wants to teach her a lesson.  A devastating series of choices will bring him directly to Emma.

Another excellent story from Wright.  The Charlie/Emma storyline slowly reveals its secrets through reflections on the past, mostly from Emma, whose only goal in life was to be the best wife ever.  Eddie's storyline is simply horrifying.  Karl faces questions about his future and his relationship with Cassandra.

If you like atmospheric, psychological suspense, this is an excellent series to try.  I reviewed the first 4 titles on my wordpress blog if you'd like to check them out.  Here are the links:

Karl Alberg 1:  The Suspect

Karl Alberg 2:  Sleep While I Sing

Karl Alberg 3:  A Chill Rain in January 

Karl Alberg 4: Fall From Grace