As the investigation reaches a fever pitch and Lizzie pursues her own leads, she wonders how well she really knew her friend. Yet Shaw is nowhere to be found, and neither is Evie. When Lizzie remembers seeing a maroon car cruising in front of their school, the police focus on Harold Shaw, an insurance agent whose car matches her description. As the last person to see Evie, Lizzie suddenly becomes the star witness, attention she both covets and dreads. A few weeks before their eighth-grade graduation, Evie disappears after school. Lizzie Hood and Evie Verver are two 13-year-old girls who have been best friends for years. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all.įans of Tana French and Kate Atkinson will welcome Abbott's haunting psychological thriller set in what appears to be pre-cellphone suburban America. Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth, prowling nights through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger? As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day.

To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.Īnd then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities of their own teenage horizons. They are best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks, and share everything that's happened to them. Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. From the award-winning author of The Turnout and Dare Me: a 'mesmerizing psychological thriller' about a teenage girl who disappears during a 1980s suburban summer ( Los Angeles Times).

The end of everything abbott