![]() ![]() ![]() The discovery leads to a truly nail-biting climax and the novel’s shocking conclusion that even eagle-eyed readers might not see coming. The penultimate chapter unites some of the book’s disparate threads, and follows Sofia and Alyona’s anxious and emotionally ravaged mother, Marina, as she meets a photographer at a solstice festival who uncovers a potential link to an earlier unsolved missing-persons case and an important clue about who the perpetrator of both crimes might be. “April” peeks into the day-to-day of a policeman’s restless wife, who, while on maternity leave, is haunted by missed opportunities and “ things darker, stranger, out of bounds.” In “May,” shrewlike Oksana, the abduction’s only witness, severs ties with a colleague after the colleague’s absentminded husband loses Oksana’s beloved dog. The subsequent 12 chapters, taking place during the months over the following year, chart the impact of the potential kidnapping-and the destructive effect of longing and loss-and play out in a series of interconnected and equally riveting stories about others in the surrounding area. In the opening chapter of Phillips’s exceptional and suspenseful debut, two sisters-Sofia, 8, and Alyona, 11-vanish from a beach on the Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia, and their disappearance sends ripples throughout the close-knit community. ![]()
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