Wake

When nine-year-old Evie McCreery, the victim at the center of Australian author Burr’s uneven debut, vanished from her home in Nannine, “a barely populated town in Central New South Wales,” her disappearance became a national story. Two decades later, it remains the subject of speculation online, including from those subscribing to the theory known by the acronym WAKE (Wednesday Addams Killed Evie), a reference to the resemblance of Mina, Evie’s twin sister, to the actress who portrayed that character on screen. The mystery is revived by PI Lane Holland, who specializes in investigating unsolved disappearances in the hopes of reaping the reward money, which he uses to help support his younger sister. Mina initially resists Lane’s outreach to her, but her attitude changes after he makes significant progress on another case that has also been unresolved for years. Burr neatly doles out the Holland siblings’ dark backstory and effectively shows her tortured leads alternating between hope for closure and resignation, but the final reveal isn’t fully satisfying. This familiar tale of an investigator probing a cold case who’s concealing his own secrets breaks no new ground. (Aug.)