The Back Road
Half-sisters Ellie and Leo have done a good job hiding the pain they experienced as children in a dysfunctional family, and now that they are grown up, they continue to maintain the façade. Ellie has a picture-perfect life but has recently initiated an affair. Leo is a successful life coach but can’t manage her own happiness. Added to the mix are several coupled-up friends of Ellie’s with plenty of their own dysfunctions. When a teenage girl in their sleepy British village is the victim of a hit-and-run, everyone finds themselves desperate to keep covering up various secrets. Local detective Tom Douglas arrives on the case and quickly realizes there’s more to this than a simple accident. He digs around and realizes the victim, who is in a coma, was actually abducted before she was run over, so there are two criminals he must now track down. Abbott creates a tangled web of deception, secrets, and red herrings that culminates in a shocking and satisfying, if a bit complicated, conclusion. Readers who miss Caroline Graham’s Chief Inspector Barnaby series will likely enjoy this mystery. --Rebecca Vnuk