Carolyn becomes fiercely defensive of her brother and her loyalty to him is apparent, yet she is still going to find him. But now she not only wants to find him because she misses him and her family needs him, but now she needs to find him so that she can clear his name of the charges against Carolyn faces some major external conflict as well as internal. She doesn't have anyone to support what she is doing. She could simply give up and stop looking for Mack, but there is an internal struggle with her. Her parents were so grief-stricken when he left. Now their father is dead (9/11 attacks) and she remembers how though there was no evidence that her brother was dead, "in the beginning, my mother and father were sometimes asked to view the body of some unidentified young man who had been fished out of the river or killed in an accident" (2).

Have the Problems Been Settled?

The problems clearly have not been settled before getting to the last chapters of the book. There is still the question of what happened to Mack -- and if he is out there somewhere, is he a serial killer? Is he insane? Could Mary Higgins Clark have made him either one of these things. Even the mother, Olivia, seems to believe that he is crazy because he had some kind of breakdown. All this is up in the air still.

There are a lot of questions (and a lot of red herrings) towards the end of the book. The reader is questioning what the Kramers are up to (Are they hiding something? Do they really know something about Mack?), and why does Uncle Devon seems like he doesn't want Mack to be found...

As a prediction for what will happen in the book, there is something strange going on with Uncle Devon and the fact that he seems against Mack being found is something that keeps one guessing and questioning as to why.
LIKES

DISLIKES

The use of all the red herrings.

The answers to the questions of the story were answered way too quickly at the end.

Carolyn. I felt she was a good protagonist and I liked the fact that she was a young woman playing a successful character with ambition and determination.

I felt like the police officers were caricatures of police officers; the dialogue often felt stiff and contrived.

Descriptive storytelling, very easy to understand and follow what is going on (i.e., the action of the story).

There were so many characters in this book! I sometimes forgot who was who.

Simple language (though sometimes too simple); it's definitely a "beach" read.

Sometimes the language seemed too simplistic.

I really wondered if Mack was crazy or a serial killer.

Dialogue felt a bit boring at times.

Elliot threw me for a loop. I never expected his involvement.

Convincing ending even though it was surprising and a tad out of the blue.