Staff Pick – He’s Gone by Deb Caletti

The morning after a party Dani Keller awakens to find that her husband Ian is not at home in Deb Caletti’s He’s Gone.

Hope that he has merely stepped out for coffee and muffins quickly dissipates as she discovers that his car is at home and the hours are ticking by. What do we know about Dani? This is her second marriage, her first marriage was marred by her husband’s violence and Ian’s by his wife’s overspending and vulgarity. They met, had an affair and their love had a kind of purity about it. They are two successful self-employed people, living the dream in Seattle on a house boat.

So what do we learn about Dani? A missing spouse is a sure-fired way to lose any privacy and intimacy in a marriage.  Ian’s disappearance becomes all the more suspicious because Dani can’t remember a whole lot about the night of the party. She had some wine, took some Vicodin, came home and passed out. She THINKS Ian came home with her, but is less clear in her own mind than she is with the police. Dani holds back information from the police, information we learn slowly as time passes, that indicates their marriage is not as rock solid as we were lead to believe.

This psychological suspense novel falls into the popular domestic thriller sub-genre and features an intricate plot that is slowly and leisurely revealed. The characterization is complex as a sympathetic and likable woman gradually reveals truths about her life that plant doubts not only in the reader’s mind but in her own as well.

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