On his wife's birthday, Harry is making dinner in their home in Tangier while the couple's three-year-old son, Dillon, sleeps. Harry realizes he left Robin's gift at a friend's house and goes to retrieve it, leaving Dillon behind since the friend's place is nearby. While Harry is out, an earthquake hits, and he rushes back to discover his house, with Dillon inside, has been swallowed by the earth.
So begins The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry (a pen name for Irish writers Paul Perry and Karen Gillece). The story fast-forwards five years later, when the couple has moved back to their native Dublin. On the same day Robin finds out she's pregnant again, Harry sees a little boy on the streets he's certain is Dillon. He decides not to tell Robin and risk upsetting her newfound sense of hope; instead, he plunges into a dizzying chase to find the truth about what happened to his son.
Many psychological thrillers have been undeservedly compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, but this one really does have strong similarities: a person goes missing on a day meant for celebration; a husband and wife take turns telling the tale; readers' perceptions and allegiance toward each narrator will likely change as the story progresses. But Perry and Gillece's voice is their own, blended nicely, offering insights into a marriage affected by grief. Save for a few big coincidences (a character does say that things may seem "very unlikely, but not impossible"), the revelations are twisty and riveting, leading to an ambiguous ending that should invite discussion. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, crime-fiction editor, The Edit Ninja