People Don't Just Disappear

Dani Keller wakes up after late night party with her husband and some of his business associates and starts her regular Sunday morning routine.  A headache looks to be on the horizon and all she wants to do is sit outside of her husband, Ian, and her houseboat and drink some coffee.  Strange, though, that Ian is nowhere to be found.  The minutes turn into hours and, before she knows it, Dani is panicking at the thought of Ian missing.  And thus begins Deb Caletti's thrilling novel, He's Gone.

My expectations were for this work to be a classic thriller/whodunit kind of story.  I was pleasantly surprised to find more substance in Caletti's study of Ian and Dani's marriage.  Both were involved in unhappy marriages before finding each other.  Dani's ex-husband was abusive towards her and Ian's ex-wife simply took advantage of him.  Despite both feeling guilty about their infidelity, Dani and Ian feel that they are soul mates.

However, as Ian remains missing, Dani finds herself dissecting her relationship with Ian.  She quickly finds that not everything is as rosy as she previously thought and there are some unsettled things between them.  Ian's personality, his (and Dani's) relationship with his ex-wife and two children, his relationship with Dani's daughter are just some of the things Dani examines while she investigates Ian's disappearance.  She believes that people don't just disappear and starts to wonder whether Ian would have left on his own.

I flew through this character study to not only find out what happened to Ian, but to find out how he and Dani, while appearing to be soul mates on the surface, were not quite the couple everyone assumed them to be.

Chris May- Adult Services Manager