"If worry were an effective weight-loss program. Women would be invisible." Nancy Drew

On a steamy summer morning, Martin Gregory rushes to Calli Clark's home. Martin's daughter, Petra, hasn't been home since early morning. He wonders if she's with her friend, Calli. Then, when Calli's mother, Antonia, checks, she's shocked to find that Calli isn't home either. In panic and fearing the worst, a search is begun and this grabs the reader's interest and locks in on the events until a resolution arrives.

Calli is a sweet, seven-year-old who suffers from selective mutism due to an incident when she was a toddler. Her father, Griff, is an abusive alcoholic who seems to doubt that he's really Calli's father, since Antonia and Deputy Sheriff Louis had been seeing each other around that time.

Calli's brother Ben, is a twelve year old who tries to take care of his little sister.

In the incident when Calli was a toddler, Griff fought with Antonia with the result that she lost the baby she was carrying. As Calli witnessed the abuse and began to cry, Griff screamed at her to "shut up."

We learn about the events of the story from the characters' point of view. This gives a more personal knowledge of events and allows the reader feel what the character must be experiencing, while being in the scene of the action.

I enjoyed the spunkiness of Calli and the courageousness of her twelve-year-old brother, Ben. Calli's mother, Antonia was a rather submissive character, perhaps symbolic of an abused wife.

The novel keeps the reader's interest and the scenes are well described although the conclusion was a bit too convenient in answering one of the story's questions.