THE OVERNIGHT GUEST

4 stars out of 5

It takes a little work to really get into the swing of this - chapters that alternate among characters and time frames make it a little hard to keep track of what's going on, when and to whom. But once you get the hang of it, everything comes together to make the kind of good story for which this author is known. It opens in August 2000 in rural Iowa when two 12-year-old girls run toward a cornfield to escape someone who is shooting at them. Later, readers learn that one of the girls was shot but lived, the other is nowhere to be found and presumed dead, the parents of the injured girl have been brutally murdered and her brother is missing.

Fast-forward to the present, when Wylie Lark has rented an old farmhouse in the area and is writing a true crime book about what really happened there 20 years ago. She's almost finished, but a huge snowstorm hits, knocking out the power and cell phones. Thankfully, Wylie has stocked up on groceries, and there's plenty of wood in the shed (assuming she wants to plod through several inches of snow to get to it). Now, all she needs to do is wait it out.

Best-laid plans, though, often go awry; it happens here when Wylie finds what she's afraid is the dead body of a young boy out in the yard. Thankfully, he's alive, so she manages to get him inside and warmed up. What she cannot do, though, is get him to speak or eat. Something is definitely amiss, but with no clues to go on and no way to contact the police, there's not much she can do - except venture out to the road to see if by chance the boy was the victim of an accident. There, Wylie makes another human discovery; but when she runs back to get blankets and warm clothing, that human has mysteriously disappeared. So for now, Wylie can only try to make her new overnight guest as comfortable as possible.

Little by little, chapter by chapter, readers see connections between past and present. Adding more details here, of course, would give away too much, so I'll simply say that, as expected, everything comes into focus at the end with plenty of action (some of which, I must say, seemed a little far-fetched) plus a few surprises. All in all, it's a treat to read, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf (Park Row, January 2022); 337 pp.