The day her mom went missing, Mariah Dunning was home from school, sick. She remembers vague snippets of conversations and has occasional flashbacks and indistinct visions, but no clear recollections.

Naturally, suspicion immediately focused on Mariah’s father, Craig. It’s always the husband, isn’t it? It seems that the entire town blames him. Someone overheard an argument between Craig and his wife, Beth. Soon after that, she vanished. He can’t produce much of an alibi. Perhaps Mariah can, but her memory is more than a little bit sketchy. Besides, she’s fiercely into protecting her dad. The police chief wants Mariah to tell him what happened, to quit shielding Craig Dunning. In reality, the police never looked seriously at any other suspect.

"Give author Jeff Abbott a chance, and he will twist you into a pretzel half a dozen times... Your mind will be madly bouncing around trying to figure out what happened to the women named Beth..."

For her part, Mariah feels compelled to clear her father’s name. She won’t rest until she does. So when a friend comes up with a fresh idea, she runs with it. And it’s a stunner. Another woman named Beth went missing not too long before Mariah’s mom. A coincidence? Mariah doesn’t think so, and starts digging into it, but she won’t share her theories with anyone until she has proof. As the clues lead her closer to answers, the threats get more serious. They had died down somewhat, but any attention on Beth Dunning’s case seems to bring out the wackos. But is this a wacko? If not, and if Craig isn’t the guilty party, Mariah may be treading on dangerous ground.

As she intensifies the search for the other Beth, Mariah discovers that sleuthing is trickier than she imagined. For one thing, people aren’t particularly forthcoming. For another, she herself is a rank amateur. Worse now, doubts about her father are creeping in. And she’s not sure about her tenuous memories. These are the very things she most hoped to avoid. If she can’t trust her own mind, she’s in big trouble. Then Mariah stumbles onto the involvement of a third Beth. The connection is elusive, but it’s there. How did her mom know either of them? That simply doesn’t seem possible. The intersection between their lives is tough to find. But there has to be one because the notion that a serial killer would target women named Beth just sounds downright absurd. So what is the common thread here?

We know that paths do cross --- sometimes with devastating results. What appears to be good fortune can change in an instant. Conversely, what seems to be a bad break might turn out to be a miracle. Most importantly, though, knowing who to trust can mean the difference between life and death. Even among one’s own family members.

Give author Jeff Abbott a chance, and he will twist you into a pretzel half a dozen times with THE THREE BETHS. And then he’ll do it all over again. Your mind will be madly bouncing around trying to figure out what happened to the women named Beth, doing your best to work out who did what to whom. You may as well give up from the first page, though. Find a comfortable chair, kick back and let Abbott set your heart to racing.