SAFE

Jenny Kristal was only 6 when she disappeared while walking to a friend’s house.

Twelve years later, a young woman claiming to be Jenny presents herself to the Long Island police, saying she’d like to go home to her parents, Jake and Laurie, and her older brother, Ben, who was 8 when Jenny went missing. While the FBI isn’t quite satisfied with her story of the mysterious “Mother” and “Father” who abducted her, Jake and Laurie are beside themselves and don’t hesitate to bring Jenny back into the fold. They’re ecstatic that she remembers so much of her childhood with them before her abduction and are eager to get on with their lives. So is Jenny. But Ben has different plans. Jenny’s disappearance took a heavy toll on him, and his welcome is not quite as warm. In fact, his attitude is downright hostile. After years of enduring one horror after another, Jenny fears that her newfound safety and security with her family may be fleeting, and a highly honed sense of self-preservation tells her that something isn’t right in the Kristal house. Someone is slipping in and out of her bedroom during the night, and a cryptic phone call and ominous Facebook messages lead Jenny to believe that she may be in danger. The pseudonymous Barnett takes an all-too-common premise and winds it into a twisty and tense exploration of family secrets, survival, and the often blurred lines between fantasy and reality and predator and prey. And almost nothing is quite what it seems. Jenny is a shrewd observer of human nature and a frank and dryly humorous narrator, but is she a reliable one? Readers will likely think they know where this runaway train is headed, making the final twists that much more surprising.

A creepy and darkly addictive thriller.