Emma in the Night

Starred review from June 5, 2017
At the start of this searing psychological thriller from Walker (All Is Not Forgotten), Cass Tanner returns home alone—three years after she vanished at age 15 from a beach on Long Island Sound, along with her then 17-year-old sister, Emma. Cass tells a detailed story about being held captive on an island in Maine, but she’s oddly short on specifics that would help locate the site. FBI forensic psychologist Abigail Winter, one of the original investigators, gets back on the case. Abby believes that the girls’ disappearance is related to emotional turmoil within the family. Cass and Emma fought bitterly, egged on by their divorced mother, Judy Martin, who thrived as a minor celebrity after her daughters went missing. Cass believes that the only one who really “sees” the family’s problems is Abby, whose own mother was much like Judy. Walker’s portrayal of the ways in which a narcissistic, self-involved mother can affect her children deepens the plot as it builds to a shocking finale. 125,000-copy first printing. Author tour. Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Associates Literary Management.

June 1, 2017
A tense thriller explores the bond between sisters and family dynamics that give new meaning to the term "dysfunctional."Three years ago, 17-year-old Emma Tanner and her 15-year-old sister, Cassandra, left home, disappearing into the night; as Walker's (All Is Not Forgotten, 2016, etc.) book opens, Cass shows up at her family's house--without Emma. Dr. Abby Walker of the FBI, a forensic psychiatrist who's been on the case from the beginning, is desperate to find out what happened and to find Emma before it's too late. Cass tells Abby she and Emma had been arguing the night they took off and that it soon became obvious that Emma was packing up to leave. Cass, hoping to get her sister in trouble, hid in the car when Emma drove off, heading to the beach, where she was met by a man and woman Cass didn't recognize. When Cass revealed herself, they decided to take her with them as they left for a remote island off the coast of Maine. Emma was pregnant, Cass says, and the couple had offered to help her, but what they really had planned was to keep the baby for themselves. Cass finally managed to escape, she says, but without Emma. It's a harrowing tale, and Cass says all she wants is to find Emma, but Abby suspects she's hiding something. Cass' first-person narrative, interspersed with Abby's investigation, paints a shocking picture of Cass' ordeal and her family's disturbing history. Her mother, Judy Martin, has always used her beauty and charm to manipulate her family, and her girls had to flatter her to win her affection. She was jealous of the attention given to her beautiful daughters, which threatened her fragile ego, and she was always scheming to get what she wanted--even seducing her stepson, Hunter, who was obsessed with Emma. Cass is a survivor, forced to become an adult very quickly, and readers will root for her as she tells her disturbing story and looks back on what could have been, when hope was all she and Emma had. This thriller aims right for the heart and never lets go.

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Starred review from May 1, 2017
Walker's second thriller (following All Is Not Forgotten, 2016) delves into dark territory, pitting a fully dimensional cast of clever, damaged characters against each other in high-stakes mind games. Three years after the high-profile disappearances of teenage sisters Emma and Cassandra Tanner, Cassandra turns up alone on her mother's doorstep. Cass claims that she and Emma had been held captive by a couple conspiring to steal the baby Emma birthed a few months after they disappeared. Emma, she claims, is still being held. As FBI psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter helps Cass unravel details that will lead them to Emma, she becomes convinced that the girls' pathologically narcissistic mother, Judy, is somehow responsible for the disappearances. Cass alternates revelations about her captivity with memories from the months before she and Emma vanished, painting a disturbing picture of family dysfunction masked by suburban perfection. But if Abby's hunch about Judy's nefarious role is correct, why has Cass returned to her mother? And is Cass really trying to lead investigators to Emma? Both twisted and twisty, this smart psychological thriller sets a new standard for unreliable narrators.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)