Local Woman Missing By Mary Kubica | Thriller Book Review
Spoilers ahead!
Content warning: profanity, infidelity, child abuse, kidnapping, violence, death, mentions of suicide, and drunk driving.
‘Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.
Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…’
Review:
This book has multiple POV’s and regularly jumps back and forth through past and present. The story begins with Shelby Tebow sneaking out at night to cheat on her husband. Tragically, on the way to meet him she is struck by a vehicle. Ten days later, her neighbour Meredith Dickey and daughter Delilah Dickey are reported missing. Straight away we’re thrown into the mystery of discovering what happened in this neighbourhood.We cut to 11 years later and we’re in the POV of a girl who has been locked in a damp basement with hardly any food or water for most of their life. We learn what kind of traumatic environment this girl has grown up in and we follow her escape plan to be free. After a chilling night of running and hiding from her captures we learn this teenage girl is Delilah Dickey. The little girl who was kidnapped 11 years before. This happens in the span of one long chapter which is an absolute wild ride to read and I was desperately rooting for her the entire time.
Delilah is soon reunited with her younger brother Leo and her father Josh. They try to return back to their regular life but Leo soon notices that something seems to be wrong with his sister. She doesn’t seem to have the same features like she did when she was younger. The original DNA test says she’s Delilah but why doesn’t Leo seem to believe that? After demanding another DNA test we learn that this teenage girl is not Delilah and they originally lied to spare Josh anymore heartbreak. We discover this is another missing girl from a completely different case. When this was announced my heart broke for the Dickey family, they truly believed they finally found part of their family just to have their hearts broken all over again.
We then rewind 11 years earlier when Josh is on a hunt for his missing girls. He recruits his lovely neighbours Kate and Bea to assist in this investigation since they’re close friends of theirs and has regularly babysat their children. We learn throughout that Meredith and Bea got drunk together one night and Bea decided she would be okay to drive home.(Stupid decision). On their journey home they accidentally hit a woman in the road, who they quickly discover is Shelby Tebow. Bea’s first thought is hiding the body so that nobody knows what they did and manipulates Meredith into being an accomplice to this crime.
Now, cutting to the all thrilling finale, Meredith’s guilt for the crime catches up with her and she decides she no longer wants to keep it a secret. She tells Bea of her plan to turn herself in and in a heated moment Bea murders Meredith. She manages to do this in front of Meredith’s daughter Delilah. (What awful timing, am I right?). Bea then takes Delilah and raises her in her studio in the back yard and keeps her locked inside for 11 years. The story ends with Delilah being found and reunited with her family and confessing all of Bea’s crimes to the police.
I was truly shocked by this ending since Bea does not come across as a malicious person – but then again, when you’re faced with the chance of potentially spending your life in jail you never know what fight or flight response your mind will conjure up. Hearing Delilah was trapped in a small studio for 11 years while she could see her father and brother through a small window was heart-breaking.
The mystery and investigation throughout this novel gives absolutely nothing away and until the end you wouldn’t have been able to guess what would happen. My heart was with the Dickey’s family and later with Kate when she realises the woman she has loved and trusted turned out to be the monster that the neighbourhood was looking for.If you’re looking for an action packed, mildly creepy, heart-wrenching and perfectly thrilling novel then this is perfect for you. This sparked a new love and respect for thriller authors with just how genius they can be. Mary Kubica has since become one of my favourite writers and I have read multiple of her novels and will continue to look out for more.
I was lucky enough to interview Kubica and I will the link if you’d like to check it out.
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