Though Jewell stretches credibility, she writes a compelling story about the harm that secrets can cause. Then She Was Gone is about what it means to be a mother and a friend. In alternating chapters, titled "Then and Now," a series of missed opportunities play out in the life of Laurel Mack. Laurel is suffering from a lack of connection; she's distant from her daughter, Hannah, even when she cleans her flat once a week. Laurel remains unconvinced by Hannah's explanation of the late nights and sleepovers, the sudden rush of parties and good times: "it's time for us to move on. We're all healing now, and this is part of the process.

Laurel's life has been difficult since the day in May 2005 when Ellie, Hannah's little sister, failed to come home. The last sighting was on CCTV when Ellie, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, was seen walking along Stroud Green Road. According the police, Ellie had probably run away. After two years, they downgraded the search. Until now, there have been no fresh sightings. As Laurel heads to the Finsbury Park police station after a phone call from the cautious detective, she thinks how strange it is to be leaving the house with such a sense of urgency.

Laurel's delicate existence, built around the fate of poor Ellie, is at the heart of the novel. Laurel hasn't slept properly since 2005. Life came off the rails after Hannah and Jake, her son, moved away. Though she's moved to the relative safety of a new flat and met kindly Floyd Dunn, Laurel still thinks about the hundreds of dark days. She refuses to trust since Ellie vanished, but Floyd, with his gray eyes and hair, and his soft skin and nice shoes, increases Laurel's sense that this meeting with this strangely attractive man was fated and not as random as she'd first thought. Laurel and Floyd have somehow recognized "the strange holes" in each other.

The novel is filled with flawed, imperfect characters who clash in a twisted, outrageous plot that culminates in the lengths Laurel will to protect the happy version that she thinks her life is supposed to be. Floyd's motivations in befriending Laurel go back to the intricate game that originated when Laurel hired Irish mathematics tutor Noelle Donnelly. In the days just before she disappears, Ellie attempts to strike an unspoken bargain with her mother. She thinks about telling her the truth: that Noelle is freaking her out and saying really "weird things." Ellie doesn't want to be alone with her, yet she doesn't want to get Noelle into trouble or let "a situation develop." Instead, Ellie thinks of all the things she can do once she's finished this chapter of her life: "I can't wait for it to be over."

For years, Laurel has stayed at home in case Ellie came back. Three years ago, she stepped out of her lost daughter's bedroom and closed the door behind her with "a soft click" that nearly killed her mental image of her perfect girl, always "so impeccably clean, so fresh smelling and fragrant." When Laurel walks into Floyd's home, she meets Poppy, who--from the lines of her pretty face, to the shape of her hairline--looks so much like her lost Ellie. There's something "slamming and arresting" about her. Perhaps Poppy is offering Laurel a second chance. Poppy has never heard of Ellie Mack: "It's sort of weird that you're here in my dad's house, and this hideous terrible thing happened to you." Plunged into middle of Poppy's affections, Laurel is unaware of the looming threat from Floyd's perhaps more sinister nature.

Jewell's lyrical writing style is a perfect fit for this vexing tale, a complex blend of wintry suspense where all four of the main characters--Laurel, Ellie, Noelle, and Floyd--intersect at critical stages. As their stories begin to converge, Laurel feels a surge of panic that her daughter might have ended up like Noelle, with nothing but "shadows in her wake." As Laurel attempts to piece together the clues--from a watermelon-flavored lip balm to an ugly sofa bed and the piles of hamster cages--she thinks of the last warning phone call from Jake's girlfriend, Blue, and of Hannah's refusal to engage with her on anything other than a shallow level. Is Noelle Donnelly a bitter psycho intent on terrorizing Ellie and Floyd? The discovery of a skeleton years after Ellie vanished brings the story full circle and is perhaps the final stroke in a murderer's rampage.

Laurel is a classic victim, a good person locked into a life of false hope. Floyd is a true master of deception, masking his secrets under the guise of helping troubled Laurel. I can understand why Jewell included an author's note about balancing out the more bizarre aspects of the narrative. In a gripping plot that yields to steps and missteps, evasions and confrontations, Jewell shows how the descent into the sad circumstances have brought these people to the place where their lives no longer have meaning.