What She Knew ~ Gilly MacMillan

MacMillan, Gilly.  2015. What She Knew. New York: William Morrow. $15.99 USD.  ISBN. 978-0062413864

This novel of literary suspense was a hard one to read at first, because it deals with a topic that is horrifying to any parent: the abduction of a child.  We feel very vividly the terror, guilt, grief and anger of the mother, especially, but also of the other family members, as well as the frustration of the detective who investigated the case.  Once the author has overloaded you with more emotion than you can quite handle, the book moves more swiftly into a mystery to be solved.  I am not ashamed to admit that I read the end of the book first, to make sure I could handle spending all the time I would have to with the main character's anguish.

 The sections from the detective's point of view were interesting, as they were in the format of his therapist's notes from his work-mandated therapy sessions.  Grueling is the word that comes to mind, but they also shed light on the impact that traumatic cases can have on the officers who investigate them.  It's not a book I would choose to read more than once, but it was very well done.