When I opened the first page of What She Knew, author Gilly Macmillan drop-kicked me straight into the drama:

A child in peril.
The police springing into action.
The mother in shock.
Set in Bristol, England.

When I opened the pages of my next read, I found —

A child in peril.
The police springing into action.
The mother in shock.
Set in Bristol, England.

What. Are. The. Chances?

It was an uphill climb, turning the pages of that second book. It was . . . Like facing a kettle of clam chowder when I’d just eaten a kettle of clam chowder the week before.

Besides, the mother in book 2 made no sense. Reeling with “shock” and “emotion,” she ran away to a seaside cottage to pursue art. She jogged along the coastline, noticing all the arty beauty, then bashed her head against the wall of a cliff (on purpose), then sprinted back to the cottage to get started on the art. With nary a headache.

I knew I wouldn’t last another three hundred pages with this character. It’s too bad. Half the blurbs on the back jacket promised me “a killer twist.”

But back to Book 1.

We meet the likable lad as his mother, Rachel, takes him for a walk in the woods. He wants to run ahead to the swing, by himself. He knows the spot well.  

And she lets him.

From there, it all goes wrong.

In the next few days, while Rachel reels in shock and grief, the helpers gather around: a seen-it-all detective; a college friend; an overbearing sister, the kind that organizes search parties and stocks the fridge with two weeks’ worth of meals.

Rachel can’t stop replaying that last moment, hoping for a different outcome.

She stops at his school to pick up his things, dodging the looks of pity from the staff. She walks down the city sidewalk, facing newspapers that trumpet the usual tragedies, only this time, its her life they’re talking about. And, this being the digital age, a mysterious blogger jumps into the mix, implying that no good mother would allow a boy that young to run ahead, alone, into the woods. And don’t we all know what mud-fights the comments section can be?

Suspects abound. The police round up loners and nutters with shaky alibis. Eventually, even the helpers eye each other, like they’re playing a high-stakes game of Clue.

You know right away, from the novel’s structure, that this case is bad enough to drive the hardened detective into therapy. But you have to keep reading to learn how.

My favorite character was the chief detective, a no-nonsense career woman, giving orders, thinking through every angle and “swallow[ing] an expletive” now and then.

Macmillan kept me guessing, and told her story with no cow patties.

However, I plan to stay away from Bristol.

Photo credits:

Police tape:   Igal Koshevoy on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC

Woman and boy: Life through Tawni’s Eyes on Visual Hunt /CC BY-NC-ND