Red Leaves – Thomas H Cook

Eric Moore is reasonably content with his life – he loves his wife, Meredith, enjoys working as the owner/manager of a photography business, and small town life. His sixteen-year old son, Keith, is a little withdrawn and solitary, but surely that’s just the nature of male adolescence; his brother does not much of anything, but he’s always been like that; and his father has always been surly and hard to please, though more so since he moved into a care home. But all in all, Eric’s happy.
One evening Keith comes home late from babysitting eight-year old Amy. He goes straight to his room, like always. And the next morning it begins, with a phone call from Amy’s father – they can’t find Amy, and want to speak to Keith. Eric and Meredith are plunged into a nightmare they could never have foreseen, as they deal with police, media, growing community hostility, lawyers and, at least for Eric, a growing suspicion that maybe his son did something to the child.
Each part of Red Leaves opens with a couple of pages of second-person reflective narrative (“When you remember those times, they return to you in a series of photographs,” the novel opens), followed by a first-person account of events as they unfold. The technique is very effective, and the premise is promising. In addition to the current crisis with Keith, Eric begins to face demons from his past - his beloved younger sister, Jenny, died in childhood; his father lost a fortune in a series of increasingly risky and bad investments; is mother died in a fiery car crash that may have been an accident or suicide; and Eric has learned through example that trouble is best avoided as long as possible. But what do you when you can’t ignore the truth?
This slender novel is compelling reading, and the mystery is subtly woven throughout the more dominant investigation of Eric’s persona and his changing perspective on the events of his childhood. Although I won’t rush out to find other of Cook’s work, if I stumble across one I’ll certainly give it a try. – Alex