HIDDEN PIECES

A multilayered psychological thriller set in the fictional small coastal town of Misty Pines, Oregon, where a 14-year-old girl is abducted.

Sheriff Jax Turner is a broken man. Five years earlier, his 4-year-old daughter, Lulu, died from cancer, and Jax’s inability to move through his grief finally led his wife, Abby, to divorce him. We meet the sheriff as he drives to the shoreline and places his gun in his mouth. He hesitates just long enough with his finger on the trigger to receive a call from headquarters: Allison Krueger is missing. One more case. One more chance to redeem himself after the failure a quarter century ago in Portland to save Madeline Massey, who was taken along with her younger sister, Elena. Although Elena escaped, Madeline was found too late. It’s the cold case that has always haunted him and his former partner and was one of the reasons he and Abby moved to the quietude of Misty Pines. Now, with his chief deputy on an Alaskan fishing trip, Jax must depend on a trio of newbies to begin the investigation. Allison’s mother, Emily, has been raising the teenager on her own ever since her husband, Daniel, left them to marry psychotherapist Elena Massey—the same Elena who’d been abducted 25 years ago. Keliikoa’s brooding mystery gradually fills with eclectic clues that link the two cases, signaling the possible return of a psychopath bent on taunting Jax and Elena, two characters whose own emotional stability is already compromised. Jax’s debilitating angst and self-doubt are viscerally portrayed, especially via his compulsive efforts to finish the dollhouse he had been building for his daughter. But his overwhelming anxiety nearly overpowers the thrill of the narrative. Fortunately, he slowly regains his professional footing, and Keliikoa builds the tension steadily as time runs out and Jax must sort through a combination of solid leads, twisty secrets, and several red herrings.  

Poignant and engrossing, with small and large surprises leading to the final reveal.