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The Monroe family seem to have it all -- wife Katie is a top forensic psychologist, her husband Scott is manager of spring training for the Yankees, and they have three beautiful daughters -- nine-year-old triplets. But it's all upended in a single day when the three girls go to the movies at a Detroit mall with an older cousin; the cousin and one of the girls, Jackie, go to Star Wars, while the other two girls go to see Night in the Museum -- and disappear. The FBI are quickly called in, and they soon have a slew of suspects -- men who Katie has testified against in child abuse cases, an embittered old boyfriend of hers, and someone in the baseball community Scott has angered. As FBI agents investigate, the family begins to fall apart emotionally, and Jackie's life is also endangered. The book is constructed on an interesting idea, but the plot stumbles along somewhat. The introduction of so many suspects is unnecessary, since the kidnapper is revealed halfway through the book. The story then becomes a matter of what will happen to the girls. This, too, could have held our attention, but the characters are all woodenly drawn. We don't ever know the Monroes that well, although they should have been an interesting family, as a biracial couple still dealing with racial issues. Even the triplets are only drawn with a few words -- Jackie is friendly and helpful, Alex is shy and sweet and Sammie is aggressive and opinionated. That's about all we're ever told. Billed as a thriller, there is, unfortunately, not much tension in the story. There is a neat symmetry in the ending, but getting there is a chore for the reader. § Lourdes Venard is a newspaper editor in Long Island, N.Y.
Reviewed by Lourdes Venard, March 2011
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