DARK LIE

A woman's deepest secret threatens her life—and that of the daughter she barely knows.

To all outward appearances, Dorrie White is a sad, middle-aged housewife. Overweight and disfigured because of lupus, the former schoolteacher seems to be the long-suffering doormat of the workaholic Sam. What neither Sam nor any of their neighbors know is that Dorrie—aka Candor or Candy—had one brief, torrid affair as a teenager, before her parents forced her to leave her hometown behind. But Dorrie has never forgotten the passionate Blake, the love of her life, nor the infant that she was forced to give up for adoption. And although her dark and brooding lover is lost to her, when Dorrie locates her daughter, the beautiful Juliet, she cannot resist following her. And when she sees the girl abducted, she has no choice but to follow. What she will do to save her only child is nothing compared to the truths she will discover about the abductor and about herself. Two-time Edgar winner Springer (My Sister's Stalker, 2012, etc.) writes for a YA as well as an adult audience, and her eye for teen concerns plays well here, as does her ability to create suspense. As the author alternates among the points of view of Dorrie and other characters, most notably the quietly devoted husband, she makes the far-fetched feel plausible, building the stoic Dorrie into a protagonist of epic proportions. One plot twist, involving an elderly cop, may be one coincidence too many, but it does play into a fine finale.

A compulsive page turner that will have readers cheering on the decidedly unglamorous heroine, this thriller gets points for making the suburban mom-type the one who saves the day.