cover image The Secret Keepers

The Secret Keepers

Julie Mars. GreyCore Press, $23 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-9671851-4-9

Loner Steve Dant, a former junkie who now runs four miles a day, has been living in New York for five months while working at a literary quarterly before he spots the svelte and lovely Christine Timberlake in the post office, reading her mail. When she leaves her keys, he picks them up, intending to return them to her. Instead, in this atmospheric, taut, psychologically rich first novel, an urban mystery driven more by character than plot, Steve decides to pocket the keys and have them duplicated. While Christine is at work, he enters her apartment, discovering, among other things, many books on the subject of incest. Meanwhile, Christine, who works as a bartender, is horrified by the sudden appearance of her ex-husband, Parker Horton. Telling her he's hired a private detective to find their daughter, Petra, whom Christine has hidden away in a school for the mentally ill on Cape Cod, Parker makes it clear he wants to return to court and obtain custody of their child. When the PI sees Steve slipping in and out of Christine's apartment, he assumes Steve is Christine's boyfriend, though he can't understand why he never sees them together. Things get complicated after Christine is robbed and assaulted; Steve discovers her in her apartment, bloody and drifting in and out of consciousness, mumbling about her fears for Petra if Parker locates her. Determined to help Christine, Steve decides to head off for Cape Cod. The detective trails Steve, setting off a multifaceted chase that ends in a surprising, if somewhat unbelievable, resolution. Mars's theme, that everybody harbors secrets--which leads to all her characters assuming they know things about the others that in fact are far from the truth-adds dimension to the characterization and also to the intrigue and suspense in this unusually smart debut. (June)