Name: Fragile
Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Author: Lisa Unger

About this book

Summary

Book Summary

Despite their mostly happy marriage, when their son Ricky's girlfriend vanishes, Maggie and Jones find themselves at odds—Maggie is positive Ricky had nothing to do with Charlene's disappearance, while Jones isn't as sure. With Charlene gone, the memory of another young girl who went missing some twenty years ago is haunting the town. That story didn't have a happy ending, and almost everyone has an unrevealed reason to keep the horror of it firmly in the past.

As Jones and the police turn their focus on Ricky, Maggie must find out the truth about what happened all those years ago. In order to save her son and the young woman whose life hangs in the balance, she'll test the bonds of her community—and find out just how fragile they can be.

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Media Reviews

"The compelling and true-to-life characters make this a great choice for mystery and suspense fans. Highly recommended." - Library Journal

"Unger's contemporary thriller offers solid entertainment, but lacks the tension of her 2008 stand-alone, Black Out." - Publishers Weekly

"Cleverly plotted and emotionally engaging." - Kirkus

This information about Fragile was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Techeditor

You should enjoy this story of two missing-person's cases
Lisa Unger is one of those authors whose books I know I’ll enjoy even before I start reading them. And once again she has proven me right with FRAGILE. This book is a quick read not only because it’s relatively short; also, you won’t want to put it down.

FRAGILE is set in The Hollows, a fictional town in upstate New York. The Hollows is a mysterious place where people grow up and never seem to be able to leave, at least not for good. So most everyone knows everyone, went to high school together, and judges each other on the basis of who they were back then.

Maggie is one of those long-time residents who left for a while but then felt compelled to return. So she married another long-time resident, Jones. He had been the handsome football star when they went to high school together. Now he’s a police detective and Maggie is a psychologist in private practice.

Their son’s girlfriend is missing. Because everyone in town knows everyone, everyone is concerned, even if only because they knew her mother in high school (because, of course, everyone attended the same high school).

For many residents of The Hollows, the investigation into this missing-person's case brings up the memory of another missing-person's case back when Maggie and Jones were in high school. Questions about this old case are finally answered during the investigation into the present case.

It’s probably a little too convenient that most people in town grew up together. I suppose that makes it unrealistic. Also unrealistic is Maggie’s practice as a psychologist. Both the good guys and the bad guys are her patients, and that, too, seems a little too convenient.

But FRAGILE's Prologue is one of the best prologues I’ve read. It seems to me that most authors add a prologue to the beginning of their book in an effort to make it interesting right away. That usually doesn’t work well for me. This time, however, it did. I kept thinking of that prologue while I read the rest of the book. It was the hint of something that is not fully clear until nearly the end.

Accept the conveniences and, maybe, disregard the psychic, and you’ll enjoy this story of a small-town psychologist and her cop and their involvement in two missing-person’s cases.

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Author Information

Biography
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Lisa Unger Author Biography

Photo: Tanya Sharkey

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six, Last Girl Ghosted, and Confessions on the 7:45 — now in development at Netflix, starring Jessica Alba. With books published in thirty-two languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger's critically acclaimed novels have been featured on "Best Book" lists from the Today Show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award ...

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