Last One to Lie

At the outset of this far-fetched, coincidence-laden psychological thriller from Winchester (All the Lovely Pieces), anxious mom Kelsey Jennings leaves yoga class one morning to pick up her two-year-old daughter, Mikayla, at the child’s day-care center in Ellicott City, Md. On arrival, she’s told that Mikayla isn’t enrolled there. When repeated calls to her high school teacher husband, Malcolm, all go to voicemail, Kelsey has a hysterical meltdown. Is she mentally ill, is she the victim of a terrible plot orchestrated by Malcolm, or is something even more sinister at work? Police detective Paul Ryan looks into her case. Kelsey, who suffered a traumatic childhood, and Paul, whose life grows increasingly dysfunctional, share narrative duties with a mysterious third character, Holly, but all three first-person voices are virtually interchangeable. Logical, grammatical prose compensates only in part for inconsistencies, such as the circumstances of Mikayla’s disappearance, and confusing, overblown backstories. Other authors have done a better job of making similar material convincing. [em]Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (June) [/em]