Be warned; this novel is much more profound, and therefore much more disturbing, than your average thriller.
Two American familes on a cruise meet up with an Argentinian family; between them they have six children. In an unnamed Central American country an onshore excursion turns disastrous when all their children go missing. Their story intersects with that a South American girl, Nora, and her uncle attempting to travel illegally into the United States to reunite Nora with her parents.
What happens to the children is confronting, disturbing and occasionally horrifying. The fact that SPOILER ALERT the American children emerge relatively unscathed after being kidnapped is no doubt a poisonous barb deliberately inserted by the author. As the Argentinian father of the two of the missing children observes: “He had come to despise the American parents, who thought nothing terrible could happen to them, even in these days of debt and war and warming seas, much of it visited on the world by their own rich, childish country. They did not even know what they did not know.”
Meloy’s true skill lies in secreting all the horrors of the world within a riveting narrative so you just can’t turn away. This is beautifully written, unsettling fiction. It buries deep under the skin and stays there; a perfect fit for those of us who like our thrillers to mess with our minds.
