Twelve years ago, Mattatuck, New York, was a small town with
a big mystery. One day, Chester Morton disappeared without
a trace. The only thing he seemed to have taken with him
was his backpack -- the truck he loved was left behind, all
of his clothes were accounted for, and no one knew where he
went. His mother was convinced foul play was involved, and
she spent money putting up billboards advertising his
disappearance and asking for information of his whereabouts.
Suddenly, one day, Chester's body is found, hanging from
one such billboard.
Even more mysterious than the body hanging from the
billboard is the fact that the body is recently deceased,
which means that Chester was alive until recently. Where
has he been all this time? Did he return home only to have
someone local kill him? Or did he commit suicide from "his"
billboard?
Facing local pressure, the Mattatuck police commissioner
calls in former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian to consult on the
case. Despite some misgivings because of some events going
on at home, Demarkian takes the case, but he soon realizes
that this case will not be easy. Police commissioner Howard
Androcoelho is bumbling and incompetent, the town lacks the
proper facilities to perform an autopsy - heck, it doesn't
even have a morgue! And the rote excuse is that "it's a
small town" since no one seems to have realized that the
"small town" has actually been growing.
Once Demarkian started truly investigating, I found the book
compelling. However, I thought it took awhile for the story
to take off. The beginning of the book was also a little
confusing because nearly every character in the book was
introduced in the first several chapters at breakneck pace,
whether or not they were vital to the plot. To try to keep
straight so many characters and how they all fit together
(or whether they even did in the first place) was an
exercise in frustration.
But once I understood the pieces and the players, the story
itself was intriguing. I always had my suspicions about who
might have been involved, and while I was right, it was
really only a lucky guess as I had absolutely no ideas about
what the person's motive(s) might have been. The story left
a few loose ends that I wish had been wrapped up since I
doubt the characters of this town will be revisited in a
future book.
Twelve years ago, Chester Morton disappeared from his
hometown in Mattuck, New York, leaving no trace and never to
be heard from again. For the past twelve years, his mother
has
kept the search for her son alive—paying for a billboard
overlooking the local community college, putting up new
flyers
every week, hounding every law enforcement agency she can
get
to listen. Her determination has made his disappearance very
high profile but it’s also been damaging to her family, her
children and to herself.
Now, Chester’s body is finally found—hanging from the very
billboard that has been advertising his disappearance.
Chester’s
corpse, however, is recent—meaning that Chester had been
alive,
somewhere, until very recently. Under pressure and with
limited
resources, the local police turn to Gregor Demarkian—a
former
FBI agent and a frequent consultant on such cases—to try and
unravel the truth buried within this very complex and
tragic case
and find out once and for all what really happened all those
years ago.
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