In which trek reviews Deceit: A Novel

Linda Baxter disappeared six years ago. Her best friend, protagonist Joanne Weeks, thinks that Linda's husband, Baxter, is behind her disappearance - and not just because of the million-dollar life insurance policy the real estate mogul had taken out on his stay-at-home trophy wife. Joanne's suspicions that Baxter killed Linda and hid the body become conviction when he collects a second million-dollar life insurance payout upon the "accidental" death of his second wife, Cherisse. Were the contusions on Cherisse's head consistent with a fall down the stairs? Joanne is skeptical.

So it appears is the Hooded Man who waylays her one rainy night with a critical piece of data about Linda's disappearance. He claims that Linda and Baxter's foster daughter saw the murder and knows where Linda's body is. The anonymous stranger provides no additional information but he does warn her not to let Baxter know.

Joanne is a skip tracer: it's her job to locate missing people. She begins a search for Melissa Harkoff. The foster daughter had been removed from the Jackson household by social services the day that Linda's bloodied car was found and no one in Vonita, California has seen nor heard from her since.

I had read two of Brandilyn Collins' books in past (Coral Moonand Violet Dawn),so when I saw Deceitavailable on Kindlefor free, I snapped it right up. Deceit is an enjoyable read, easily categorized as both suspense novel and Christian fiction. Collins presents Christianity as a faith to be lived. She avoids attempting to use her book as a bludgeon to force a reader into conversion.

The retelling of the action is divided into two distinct "voices". Voice #1 is set in the present and is narrated by the protagonist. Voice #2, the flashback voice, is set around the time of Linda's disappearance and is told in the third person, looking over Melissa's shoulder. Changing voices in the transitioning between past and present works well here. The reader is not left to guess that a change in perspective has occurred: perspective changes only at the beginning of a new chapter and is signaled with the month and year just below the chapter number.

I enjoyed Deceit, and there are a few interesting little twists towards the end of the story, but I was left wondering "why?" several times. Since the protagonist made her living as a skip tracer, why didn't she think to question Melissa Harkoff right after Linda's disappearance? If Joanne was convinced that Baxter was dirty, why did she wait six years, until after another woman lost her life?