Description
With Vanished, her thirty-first bestselling novel, Danielle Steel brings to life the story or a man and woman faced with an almost unthinkable tragedy – the mysterious abduction of their young son. In the late 1930s, in the shadow of the Lindbergh kidnapping, and as war looms in Europe, Marielle Patterson shares her life with her husband Malcolm and their little boy Teddy, in an elegant brownstone on New York’s upper east side. But their lives are filled with secrets. Haunted by a past she has kept hidden even from her husband, Marielle secretly lights a candle each year for a child who died in a tragic accident when he was scarcely more than a baby. Consumed with guilt, Marielle is nevertheless a devoted wife and mother. Malcolm, stern and successful, is a man everyone admires. On the eve of little Teddy’s disappearance, Marielle runs into her first love, American expatriate Charles Delauney. The ache of the memory is instantly revived, their brief moments together bittersweet and explosive. And when Teddy is kidnapped, Charles is first blamed, then arrested. Suspicions and accusations mingle with terror and heartbreak, as the Pattersons, the New York Police, and the FBI turn the city, and eventually the country, upside down, looking for Teddy. The inevitable parallels with the Lindberghs are drawn, and the fear that Teddy has been killed can’t be ignored. Every threat, every failure, every terror is remembered, examined, explored. Even Marielle is scrutinized by the FBI, and special agent John Taylor. The questions are inevitable: Who kidnapped Teddy Patterson? Did Charles Delauney? Someone else? Did Marielle conspire with them? Is the child dead or alive? Does Malcolm, the boy’s father, have secrets of his own? FBI agent John Taylor becomes obsessed with mother and child, and finding the elusive answers. A terrifying court drama seeks to put Charles Delauney behind bars, as a series of revelations begin to unravel the truth about Marielle, Charles, and Malcolm. Piece by piece the uncovering of their pasts creates a complex mosaic of the motives and passions controlling their lives. Vanished is an intriguing tale of guilt, desire, and suspense, and people one can’t easily forget, as they are drawn inexorable together, seeking the child that … vanished. Hard cover, 303 pages. In very good preloved condition with the exception of a slight yellowing to page edges.