Deceptions — Rebecca Frayn

HOW WELL CAN A MOTHER EVER REALLY KNOW HER CHILD?

Julian and Annie have only just announced their forthcoming marriage when Annie's twelve-year-old son, Dan, fails to come home from school. Despite an extensive police investigation, the days turn into weeks and it is as if Dan has vanished into thin air.

Over the next three years Annie refuses to give up hope that somewhere her son is alive and will one day return home. Julian, meanwhile, can't help but yearn for Annie to put the past behind her and move on. Then, out of the blue, a call brings shocking news of Dan's fate. And far from being over, it seems the mystery of his disappearance is only just beginning.

In spare, searing prose, Deceptions addresses our simultaneous need for -- and wariness of -- human connection and the extremes that we are driven to by these competing impulses. Marking British literary star Rebecca Frayn's arrival in the United States, this is fiction at its riveting best.