When a woman is arrested for leaving the scene of a hit and run, she ends up in the hospital under observation, where she alludes to being one of the Bethany girls who were allegedly abducted in 1975. This launches a deep investigation by police detective Kevin Infante, who keeps digging into the past. After thirty years, the trail has one dead end after another.

As the reader follows Infante’s search, sections of the past intrude. These show the reactions of the girls’ parents and the police to what has happened there and reveal bits of what impacts the present.

Lippman is skilled at developing characters. She is able to draw people with a complexity that presents more than predictable behaviors. Her background as a Baltimore Sun reporter provides the foundation for deep research that this book requires in its dual approach to the story. It is similar to the TV series Cold Case, where modern day detectives seek out witnesses to speak about events in the past that are revealed as separate episodes, sometimes done as black and white. Lippman, however, doesn’t set up those episodes in this book as eye witness testimony. She slips them in by sections, with a proper heading so the reader knows in which year the events are taking place.

It is an effective technique, but one that I found intruding. I wanted to get on with the mystery. I didn’t really want to know about these characters, though they were well draw. This has no bearing on the merits of the novel. It is quite good and would be a great read for those who enjoy a mainstream fiction or chick lit. I’m not a fan of either. For me, I just wanted to know who did it and why.