The Shadow Tracer by Meg Gardiner, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Five years ago Sarah Keller's sister was murdered, leaving a six-week-old daughter, Zoe. The baby's father was the son of Edrick Worthe, a self-proclaimed prophet and leader of a polygamist clan, the Holy Gospel of I, Me and Mine. Worthe's philosophy is that all children born of the clan belong to him, to be married off at the age of 14 to whomever he chooses. Fearing for Zoe's future, Sarah takes the child and disappears to start a new life in The Shadow Tracer, a stand-alone thriller by Meg Gardiner.

Sarah now lives in Oklahoma and works as a skip tracer, an expert in finding people, who have tried to hide from the law. Everyone who knows her believes that Zoe is her daughter. But then a freak school bus accident upends Sarah's life. Zoe is taken to a hospital, where the staff discovers that she is not Sarah's biological daughter, exposing the lie that she has led for the past five years. Using her professional skills, the tracer becomes the traced, with Oklahoma police, Federal agents, and Zoe's father and grandfather searching for her. With few friends to help her, how long can Sarah stay hidden?

The Shadow Tracer is a riveting tale of a woman's love for a child, one for whom she will do anything to protect. The storyline is more complex than originally imagined, with Zoe being more important to the Worthe family than Sarah — or the reader — can imagine. Strongly developed, Sarah is smart, resourceful, and able, making her a most interesting character to follow. Action-oriented, to be sure, this is also a thoughtful story, one that engages the reader on several levels.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Shadow Tracer.

Acknowledgment: Penguin Group provided a copy of The Shadow Tracer for this review.

Crosscut
Signet (Mass Market Paperback), September 2008
ISBN-13: 9780451225221; ISBN-10: 0451225228