Keep This for Me

Fawcett’s dour sophomore effort (after Beneath the Stairs) explores the reverberations of a kidnapping across three generations. In 1993, troubled young couple Ana and Ben head to a party with hopes of rousing Ana from her postpartum depression, only to be abducted by a truck driver. Ben manages to escape, but Ana disappears and is never seen again. Serial killer Eddie Ward is eventually caught and blamed for the incident, but Ana’s body is never found. Thirty years later, a dying, morphine-addled Eddie tells prison staffers that he didn’t kill Ana, prompting Ben and Ana’s daughter, Fiona Green—who’s struggling with her own postpartum depression—to return to the town where her mother disappeared. Then a woman named Angela Ramirez vanishes under circumstances eerily similar to Ana’s. Eddie’s adult son, Jason, emerges as a suspect in Angela’s disappearance, leading both Jason and Fiona to search for the truth about crimes past and present. Fawcett maintains little mystery about the real perpetrator’s identity, instead anchoring the novel in psychological portraits of Fiona and Jason. Unfortunately, neither character really comes to life, and the plot’s insistent joylessness eventually takes a toll. It’s a bummer. Agent: Victoria Marini, Irene Goodman Literary. (Oct.)