MISSING WHITE WOMAN

Garrett’s latest thriller targets the insidious impact of influencer culture, as seen through the eyes of a Black woman.

Baltimore-based Breanna Wright is at the “let’s take a trip” stage in her budding relationship with Ty Franklin, her first serious boyfriend in more than a decade. When he invites her to spend a long weekend with him at a luxurious Airbnb townhouse in Jersey City, where his company is based, Bree jumps at the chance. But her romantic getaway turns into a nightmare when Bree descends the stairs on her final morning to discover the bloodied body of a white woman in the foyer and Ty gone. Could the victim be Janelle Becket, a beautiful blond dog walker whose disappearance the previous week has dominated the video postings of TikTok makeup influencer Billie Regan? When the police question Bree, she is frozen with fear—the result of a traumatic encounter with law enforcement years earlier—until Adore Smith, her estranged college best friend turned successful attorney, sweeps in to take charge. Garrett does a good job of capturing the online mob mentality that explodes as suspicion falls on both the missing Ty (“A dead white woman. A missing Black man”) and on Bree (who gets doxxed in an act of guilt by association). But what could have been a razor-sharp, suspenseful tale about racial profiling gets bogged down in a plodding storyline that follows Bree as she checks in and out of hotels, sleuths by scrolling social media on her phone, and indulges in banal conversations with Uber drivers and hotel clerks. Bree is also a frustrating protagonist who continually ignores her friend’s smart advice; indeed, the stylish and ambitious Adore is the most compelling and vividly drawn character in the novel.

Clunky prose and illogical plot holes will disappoint Garrett’s fans.