Follow Me Down
"...a top notch read from a powerful new voice.. "
Synopsis:
Mia never intended to go home again, but has no choice when her twin brother goes missing. Back to the people she left behind, the person she used to be, and the secrets she thought she'd buried.
Her brother Lucas, a popular teacher, has disappeared on the same day as the murdered body of one of his students was pulled from the river. Trying to wrap her head around the rumours of Lucas's affairs with the teenager, and unable to reconcile the media's vicious portrayal of Lucas with her own memories of him, Mia is desperate to find another suspect.
All the while, she wonders, if he's innocent, why did he run?
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Review:
'Follow Me Down' is a remarkably assured first novel that reminded me of Gillian Flynn's dark and brilliant debut, 'Sharp Objects'. Both novels feature a troubled heroine forced to return to their home town and, in doing so, confront their damaged pasts. Mia is leading a successful life as a pharmacist in Chicago. Unlike Mia, Lucas never left Wayoata, the North Dakota town where the twins grew up. He's a high school teacher, much loved by his students and the local community. All that changes when the body of one of his students – sixteen year-old Joanna Wilkes is pulled from the river. It's clear she's has been murdered. Trying to find the truth drags Mia back into a past she'd rather forget. Increasingly, she falls back on her old prescription drug habit, an addiction every bit as dangerous as the alcoholism that ruined her own mother's life. Like all the best crime fiction, 'Follow Me Down' explores the damaging, long term effects of a troubled childhood. Living with an alcoholic mother, Lucas and Mia had a troubled and chaotic upbringing. The twins' relationship with each other has always been the single thing that's kept them from falling apart. It's this bond that drags Mia back to Wayoata and makes her fight so hard for Lucas. She has to find him and prove he's not a killer, no matter what it takes. With a complex plot, a host of nasty characters and a compelling central character, 'Follow Me Down' is a top notch read from a powerful new voice in the over-crowed world of psychological thrillers.