All the Things You Are
Clare Taylor gave up her fledgling acting career to be a wife and mother, but after a wild week away from her family, she returns home to find an empty house, her family missing, everything gone. As she walks through the empty house to the yard, she finds the body of the family dog, eviscerated. Thinking it is a Halloween prank gone terribly wrong, she awakens the next morning to find the sheriff waiting to padlock the foreclosed home that she believed was owned free and clear. Then a childhood friend of her husband, Danny, is found dead in the yard, and things become even more frightening and complicated. The plot moves back and forth from a Halloween fire when Danny was in high school to the present day, with mistaken identities at the crux of the story. These are complex characters in a story that seems to circumvent logic, yet Hughes makes it all work. Readers who appreciate family thrillers from such writers as Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay will find much to enjoy here. --Stacy Alesi