Bryden and Sam Frost seemingly have it all. With thriving careers and an adorable three-year-old daughter, Clara, they're the envy of all their friends and peers in their Albany, New York neighborhood. But when Bryden doesn’t arrive to pick up Clara from daycare and isn’t responding to texts or messages, Sam and her sister, Lizzie, start to worry. Where could she be?

A cursory glance around their well-appointed condo shows that Bryden had been working from home that day, but she signed off her computer in the early afternoon. So why is her purse, keys and cell phone on the console table by the door, where they usually are when she’s home? Even her car is in the building’s underground garage, but Bryden is nowhere to be found. She would never miss picking up her little girl unless something serious prevented her from doing so. After reaching out to friends with no news of his wife’s whereabouts, Sam decides he needs to bring in the police. 

"Perfect to toss into your beach bag or dive into if you’re in a reading rut, this dynamic novel will remind you exactly why we love thrillers like this in the first place."

Enter Detectives Jayne Salter and Tom Kilgour of the Albany Police Department. Salter has been doing this long enough to realize that in most cases, the husband is to blame, but she’s trying to keep an open mind. He seems distraught enough but doesn’t really have a sound alibi. As Salter and Kilgour begin their investigation, they wonder if Bryden ever made it out of the building. It seems that their marriage was strong, and she had no enemies to speak of. Could it be a random stranger abduction?

However, the more Salter and Kilgour dig, the more suspects they turn up. Besides Sam, there’s Lizzie, who has an overactive interest in true crime and keeps inserting herself in the investigation. There’s also the neighbor down the hall, Harry Kemp, who had been accused of kidnapping and sexual assault years ago, although he was never charged. And then there’s Derek Gardner, who had been involved in a fender-bender with Bryden a couple of months earlier. Could Derek and Bryden have been having an affair? Could that be motive enough for murder?

Their quest is made even more challenging by the fact that the closed circuit security cameras in the hallways and garage aren’t working. Lizzie calls her parents to let them know that Bryden is missing. They insist on flying from their home in Florida to be there with Lizzie, Sam and Clara, hoping against hope that their daughter will walk through the door with an animated story about where she had been.

Salter requests a K-9 unit to come to the apartment building in the hopes of picking up Bryden’s scent and determining if she ever left the premises. Lizzie implores Salter to bring the dogs to the building’s lesser known spaces, especially empty units, the boiler room, and possibly the storage unit room, as Bryden recently had moved some boxes down there.

As the search continues, tensions run high. Harry’s wife is starting to suspect that maybe there was some truth to the charges against her husband years ago. And perhaps he’s done it again. Sam seems stressed, but maybe not frantic enough considering his wife is missing with no explanation. Lizzie is trying a little too hard to steer the investigation, which raises Salter’s hackles. And Derek, the seemingly random person involved in the hit-and-run with Bryden, may not be such a random connection after all. Even Derek’s wife is starting to become suspicious.

Bryden’s best friend, Paige, shows up to help take care of Clara. During questioning by the police, she reluctantly admits something about Bryden that is pretty shocking.

With all of these suspects and their own secrets to hide, no clues or even evidence of a crime scene, and the clock ticking down, the place is a tinderbox that is about to blow.

Shari Lapena is back and in fine form with this propulsive thriller that will have you furiously turning pages as you race to the end. SHE DIDN’T SEE IT COMING is told from multiple points of view, placing you right there in the building as people are frantically looking for Bryden. Along with being the “Queen of Domestic Suspense,” Lapena is a maven at the one-weekend read. Her ninth thriller sits comfortably alongside earlier titles like THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR and SOMEONE WE KNOW.

Perfect to toss into your beach bag or dive into if you’re in a reading rut, this dynamic novel will remind you exactly why we love thrillers like this in the first place.