Dear Amy A novel

There is much to draw readers into this ripped-from-the-headlines debut novel, but in the end, implausibility spoils what was apparently designed to be a breathtaking plot twist. Margot Lewis is a high-school teacher in Cambridge, England, who also writes an agony aunt column called Dear Amy for the local newspaper. One of her students, a 15-year-old girl named Katie, goes missing. Then Margot gets a Dear Amy letter from a girl who identifies herself as Bethan Avery, saying she is being held captive and pleading for help. Bethan was abducted from the area 20 years before and never found. The brutal sexual enslavement, sadly, is not what beggars belief. But would the police flat-out refuse to investigate when the handwriting in the letters matches actual samples from Bethan's diary? When Margot gets an assist from criminologist Martin Forrester, the truth begins to dawn on the reader. The pathos is present, but the depravity and terror are too obliquely addressed. Callaghan definitely shows plenty of promise, and this debut may attract some attention from fans of the unflinching Jennifer McMahon.--Murphy, Jane Copyright 2016 Booklist

Margot Lewis, the prickly heroine of Callaghan's solid debut, teaches at prestigious St. Hilda's Academy in Cambridge, England. In her spare time, she writes the "Dear Amy" advice column for a local newspaper in her spare time. Meanwhile, Margot is about to get divorced from her handsome, philandering husband, Eddy, who knows more about her checkered history than she'd like. When she receives a letter purporting to be from Bethan Avery, a girl who disappeared as a teenager in 1998, Margot is unnerved, but becomes more so as more letters arrive, especially since they remind her of the recent disappearance of a St. Hilda's student, 15-year-old Katie Browne, whom police are treating as a runaway, despite Margot's suspicions. Margot teams with a Cambridge University criminologist, Martin Forrester, the head of the Multi-Disciplinary Historical Analysis Team, to analyze the letters, which appear to be written by Bethan. While the reader might guess the links between the current-day abduction and the earlier crime, Callaghan keeps the suspense high throughout. Agent: Judith Murray, Greene and Heaton (U.K.). (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.