Missing Pieces by Kathryn Schleich

Author

Missing Pieces

Attorney Madelyn Cummins has experienced her fair share of adversity, but the future looks bright for this young professional. She is surrounded by friends she considers family, construction is nearly completed on her dream home, her law practice is growing, and she is making a difference in the lives of her clients. But there is one case involving a prominent Minnesota auto magnate that has been particularly challenging. As the tension mounts, Maddie suffers an episode of transient global amnesia (TGA) and struggles to piece together the events that took place during the hours missing from her memory. In the days, weeks and months that follow, her nightmares reveal several shocking truths. She joins forces with women in her close-knit circle—a savvy paralegal, a sharp U.S. attorney, a no-nonsense FBI agent—to get to the bottom of a decades-old cold case.

Reviews

Transient global amnesia (TGA), a temporary condition that makes it impossible to form new memories and often follows a traumatic experience, might sound like a malady dreamed up by thriller novelists, but Schleich (author of Salvation Station) drew on her own real-life experience of TGA to craft this mesmerizing mystery of murder and the mind. The aptly titled Missing Pieces focuses on Maddie Cummins, an attorney who prides herself on making a difference in her clients’ lives, as she tackles a high-profile public divorce case representing the third wife of an automotive tycoon whose diabolical past may just catch up to him. Tension escalates when Maddie is blindsided by an eerie amnesia episode. Adversity and stress court every lawyer, but when the police discover Maddie in her filthy pajamas with fresh cuts and bruises, roaming aimlessly, she lands in the hospital overnight for a series of tests, including a CT scan.

Creepier still: visions of a human skull that trigger nightmares that drive Maddie to hypnotherapy. As the stakes ramp up, and as Maddie struggles to determine whether or not her imagination is conjuring dark scenarios, Schleich captures the unsettling feeling of not trusting one’s own mind as well as the practical tensions of what it means to put one’s life and responsibilities on hold, especially as Maddie’s friends, a U.S. Attorney and an FBI agent, insist she take time off to recuperate. But after a shocking discovery, Maddie has no choice but to dig deeper, uncovering a trail of homicides, some decades old, with one common denominator: her client’s soon to be ex.

Schleich crafts an intriguing and twisting murder plot that moves briskly, builds to surprises, and centers on a woman who no longer can count on her sharpest asset: her mind, where words now “flicker” like “a dying neon sign.” What makes Maddie compelling is her refusal to accept this and her zeal to fight for justice.

Takeaway: Gripping mystery of a lawyer's amnesia and a rash of murders.

Comparable Titles: Dylan Young’s Trauma, Charles Harris’s Room 15.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Find out the latest indie author news. For FREE.

Password Reset