Missing Sam

An ill-timed fall during a morning run shatters the lives of English professor Sam O’Malley and her wife, Ali Mirza, in this engrossing thriller from bestseller Umrigar (The Museum of Failures) that doubles as a moving meditation on otherness. Sam and Ali have always felt comfortable in their leafy, upscale suburb—the so-called “People’s Republic of Cleveland Heights”—but when Sam heads out for an early-morning run and never returns, it becomes painfully clear to Ali just how thin her neighbors’ veneer of tolerance is. Blood traces along Sam’s running route lead detectives to conclude that she was abducted after falling to the ground, but Sam’s narcissistic graduate student Candace Brickman fans speculation that Ali—a Muslim and second-generation Indian American—might be responsible for Sam’s disappearance. As days turn into weeks, clients of Ali’s interior design business cancel projects, racist trolls attack her online, and someone puts a bag of human feces on the couple’s doorstep. Though the hunt for Sam propels the narrative, Umrigar never loses sight of the bigger picture, including the conflicting pulls of family, faith, sexuality, and culture that shape her characters. This vivid and deeply felt narrative should please the author’s fans and win her new ones. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman. (Jan.)