Rating: 3 1/2 stars

When Anne's mother goes missing she doesn't take it very seriously. Her mother is always disappearing without explanation. Her concern doesn't set-in until she is unable to reach her mother by phone. Then the threatening phone calls begin, demanding a woman that Anne doesn't know.

Or does she?

After locating and reading the letter her mother left for just such a situation Anne learns all too quickly that everything she thought she knew about her mother was a lie. Now Anne must sift through the pieces that are left of her life to solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance and the tangled net that has led to this end.

I give kudos to the author for attempting to give YA readers a good thriller with plenty of plot-twists but unfortunately it doesn't work all that well. The story is relatively eager to parse out early on and the narrative just doesn't have enough oomph to keep up interest. YA readers are a helluva lot more savvy than they get credit for and I don't see a teenager reading this with much believability. With everything on the market today a good thriller is hard to find and though the author makes a very good attempt, it falls short of the mark.

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Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (September 9, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0385735596
ISBN-13: 978-0385735599