Desire Line

Two disappearances are at the heart of this ambitious novel from Welsh author Williams (Salvage). The first to go missing from the Welsh town of Rhyl is 15-year-old Eurwen, the daughter of police officer Josh Meredith, with whom she was living and who has a reputation for bravery. Later, Josh's estranged wife, Sara, a scholar at Oxford University, comes to Rhyl to search for Eurwen. During a terrible flood that rips through Rhyl and leaves a few people dead, Sara vanishes. The narrator, an architect named Yori who plans for the rebuilding of Rhyl and whose perspective ranges from 2008 to 2041, gradually reveals what happened to Eurwen and her parents as well as the reasons for his interest in them. Sara's fame as the discoverer and biographer of Thomasina Swift, an 18th-century woman who disguised herself as "Tom Swift" to become the first woman to study at Oxford, plays a major role in this sensitively told tale of family dissolution. (Jan.)