Fragile : a novel
(Book)

Includes questions for discussion.

"This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book 'Darkness, my old friend' by Lisa Unger. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition." --T.p. verso.

Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows's insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients' lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie's intuitive gift proves useful to the case -- and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene's disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.