Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another review! For this review, I get into Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica, a dark and suspenseful thriller that revolves around a mother and her young daughter going missing.
Main Characters:
- Meredith and Delilah Dickey: Mother and daughter who 11 years previous went missing, when Meredith is found dead it’s assumed that Delilah is lost forever
- Josh and Leo Dickey: Father and son who suffer the after math of losing half of their family with little to no answers
- Kate and Bea: A couple who lives next to Josh and Meredith, and had some type of friendship with them before Meredith and Delilah went missing
Some warnings for future readers:
- This book contains topics such as the kidnapping of children, and children being in captivity for a long time
- This book contains murder
- This book contains medical malpractice
My Review
Going into Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t think it was going to be bad, but given the title, I was curious if it would be very similar to a lot of other books I read. Despite the already very done theme and plot (kidnapping and murder), this book had a lot of unexpected twists that I didn’t see coming at all. I was dying to start to put together the puzzle and find out what happened to Meredith and Delilah.
I gave the book overall an 8/10 rating. As I had said before the mystery itself in the book was really riveting, and it gripped my attention for a lot of the book. I found the start of the book to be really smart, in which Kubica pulls the reader in by showing Delilah in captivity, until Delilah escapes we don’t get a look at the lives of her family. I was super pulled in by Delilah’s perspective even when it switched to then being the perspectives of Meredith in the past, Kate in the past, and Leo in the future, instead of Delilah’s. I was already so pulled into the story that I didn’t mind this change as much as I thought I would. The only problem with the book having such a strong start was it did fall off a bit at the end for me. Once the mystery started to unravel I felt like the book dragged on a bit. The end finish’s off big but it felt like we had to wait a bit too long to get there.
There is also another missing woman named Shelby Tebow who gets tossed into the story along with Delilah and Meredith. For a while, I was a bit confused as to why she was a character in the book, and would often forget she was a part of the plot until she was brought up again. She ultimately does become a big part of the story, but early on she just kind of seemed like filler. I honestly think all the backstory on her was kind of unneeded and felt a bit like filler to me, but they were still decently enjoyable parts. Sometimes in these kinds of books when the perspective is constantly switching back and forth, along with the time frame (either 11 years in the past or in the present), it can get a bit confusing. I actually felt like this way of telling the story helped it have more sense. I was often more excited for the past parts than the future because those exposed way more influential parts of the story than the present perspectives did.
One other aspect that I noticed about this book is that I didn’t get super connected to any of the characters. Since the book starts off with Delilah’s perspective I felt like she was the one who I was instantly connected to, and of course, was rooting for. When we don’t get her perspective anymore it’s up to the other characters to tell us things. In the past parts, it really doesn’t speak about her much, and in the present, it’s from her younger brother Leo’s perspective. I didn’t love Leo, and while it’s clear he’s a kid who had a lot of struggles and trauma, it was hard sometimes to not roll your eyes at him. Since he’s the only one who gives us info on Delilah it’s hard to not be annoyed that it’s not someone else who’s a bit more empathetic. A lot of the characters I just didn’t take a big liking to or didn’t know enough about them to connect. A lot of the characters I felt like they were hiding things most of the story, so I just didn’t really trust anyone other than Delilah for most of this book.
I’ve heard that Mary Kubica has lots of other awesome books to check out, so I am excited to check out more of her work in the future. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone in the mood for a dark and suspenseful thriller filled with lots of twists and turns.
Summary and Commentary
***Please be aware this section will have spoilers***
The book starts off with a nameless woman 11 years in the past speaking about sneaking out to meet a different man than her husband. Her part ends off with her hiding waiting for her side piece to come get her and a car coming her way.
In the present, we get a perspective from Delilah. She’s been kept captive in a dark basement for a very long time. It seems like she’s been kidnapped by a bit of an older couple. The couple is very abusive towards her, often starving her for days, and continuously keeping her in the small dark basement. She isn’t the only one down there. It seems that a young boy named Gus is also being kept captive in the basement with her. Delilah takes on a big sister role with Gus often being the main one of the two to take the abuse to protect him. It didn’t seem like the kids were kidnapped for sexual reasons, as the couple didn’t even come down into the basement to give them the food they just left it on the top step for them to grab. So if that wasn’t the motivation, why would they want to keep two kids in their basement? As the couple’s attitude continues to get worse towards the kids, meaning more starvation, Delilah decides she has to come up with a plan. Before Gus was brought into the basement she didn’t have much fight in her. Now he was the only reason she wanted to fight and get out, she needed to save him, protect him. Delilah one night keeps the spoon from their dinner. She starts working towards sharpening the spoon to maybe one day use it as a weapon.
When the kids have now been starved for a few days Delilah decides that she can’t let them die down here. The man in the couple has some kind of soft spot for Delilah. One day when the woman is out he comes into the basement to give her a treat, as a way of apologizing for not being fed. He’s definitely a bit creepy with her so maybe it is sexual. Delilah decides that this will be the best time for her and Gus to escape. With her sharpened spoon in hand, Delilah stabs him in the neck. Gus and her make a run for it. Since the spoon wasn’t extremely sharp it more or less ended up being just a flesh wound. He comes after the kids as they run through the woods near the home. At some point, Delilah ends up losing Gus. In a panic, she tries to find him without being found, but he’s nowhere. She can hear the couple nearby looking for her and assumes that they’ve already found Gus. Delilah waits out in her hiding spot for some time until she feels it’s safe. Running again she finds a woman walking her dog. When the woman asks her name she tells her it’s Delilah Dickey. The woman is shocked as it has been such a long time since Delilah went missing.
Next, we get a perspective from Kate who is the Dickey’s next-door neighbour. Her perspective is from 11 years in the past. Kate explains the night that Delilah and Meredith went missing. She explains Josh Dickey and his young son Leo coming to her and her girlfriend Bea’s door in a panic. It’s late at night and, oddly, the two aren’t home. Meredith is generally quite communicative with her husband, so it’s odd for her to not be answering her phone. Along with that, oddly, she wouldn’t be back with their child by now given that Delilah’s bedtime was hours ago. Bea and Kate advise Josh to call the police, as they agree this is out of character for Meredith. Josh is trying not to panic and think the worst and Kate attempts to keep him calm.
We then get a perspective for Meredith also 11 years in the past. Meredith is a bit of a complicated woman. She’s extremely dedicated to her work and home life, but it seems like the work-life often steps in the way of the home. While being an extremely compassionate and kind woman, she often isn’t this way for herself, putting a lot of pressure on her own shoulders. Being a birthing coach means she has clients reaching out to her at all hours, and it’s attending births at all different times. When Meredith is at home one night she gets a weird text from an unknown number saying that they knew what she did. The texts are threatening in nature, but Meredith really isn’t sure as to who they would be from. I’ll be honest I totally forgot this was an aspect of the story once you get more into it. This becomes kind of an insignificant aspect of the story. The texts however really seem to freak her out, so it got me wondering what it was that she did.
We then get a perspective from Leo Delilah’s brother in the present. He gets pulled out of school because the police have found his sister after 11 years. The news isn’t all that exciting to him. It seems like Leo projects a lot of his pain and hurt onto his sister and mother, their disappearance, and his mother’s death, being the blame for a lot of his problems. While he is happy Delilah is back for his Dad’s sake as he essentially sees him as being nothing since the loss of his daughter and wife, he doesn’t enjoy how this will disrupt the life he’s figured out for himself. I do have a lot of sympathy for the kid too. He seems like a bit of an ass, but to be fair he has always been second fiddle to a sister that has been gone for a decade and has always been known as the kid with a dead mom. It seems like he’s quite insecure about his family’s story, and wishes he was anyone but himself.
Back with Kate in the past, we learn that Meredith and Delilah’s disappearance is not the first one their community has had to deal with recently. Not that long ago a young mother of the name Shelby Tebow went missing without a trace. Her husband had been the main suspect in her disappearance. She wonders if maybe Meredith and Delilah’s disappearance has anything to do with Shelby’s.
With Meredith now it’s clear these text messages really have her freaked. When she texted back saying they had the wrong number, they responded by saying that they had meant for the message to be for Meredith. Despite the texts being around something she’s done she can’t seem to think of what that would be.
In the present with Leo, he and his dad go to meet Delilah at the police station. They are doing a DNA test to make sure that she’s really Delilah, but she seems to recognize her dad so it seems it’s her. Leo struggles with how damaged Delilah is. He attempts to have some empathy for her but also struggles with her weirdness and lack of social understanding. Overall he just finds her weird and like he can’t really connect with her as siblings. Despite the DNA test not being done yet, the police release Delilah to her family as it seems like she’s comfortable with them. The only thing is Leo isn’t super comfortable with her. He also doesn’t like the closeness his Dad has with the detective on Delilah’s case. It seems to make him uncomfortable, with the idea that his Dad could have romantic feelings.
With Kate in the past, she and Bea join their community’s efforts to do a search for Delilah and Meredith. Meredith’s purse and car are gone, but nothing else that would make it seem like she left with Delilah was gone. When they get together with the group doing the search, Bea and Kate find out that Meredith has been acting a bit weird recently. She had been calling out of work a lot and didn’t seem much like herself. No one knows why this would be though. Kate and Bea go knocking on neighbour’s doors as part of their search, to see if anyone saw the two recently. They arrive at the home of one of Meredith’s friends Cassandra. She tells the two that one night when she was up with her son she saw someone hanging around the front of the Dickey’s home. She never thought much of it at the time but with them now missing she wonders if it’s connected. They go to the Tebow home next. Mr. Tebow isn’t exactly happy to have them at the home, thinking that they are reporters looking for a story. When he hears the reason why they are there he admits that he knew Meredith. She was the birth coach for his and Shelby’s baby’s birth. He tells them that Shelby was seeing her doctor for malpractice due to issues that were caused to their daughter when she was mishandled during the birth. Meredith was originally named to testify in Shelby and her baby’s defence. This makes Bea and Kate wonder if the doctor could have had something to do with their disappearances since he seems to be the disgruntled connecting factor. It ends with a text being sent in the group chat of the search volunteers sharing that a body had been found.
With Meredith, we see her connection to Shelby for the first time. Being new to the area Meredith takes Shelby on as a client when she is in the later stages of her pregnancy. Shelby is clearly a bit insecure and awkward but she seems like she will be a great mother. Shelby admits that it’s going to be hard to convince her husband to pay for Meredith’s services as he sees them as silly, but she really wants it so they will make it happen.
Back with Kate, she, Bea and Josh, all await at the spot of the body. Josh hoping it’s not Meredith awaits the opportunity to potentially make an identification. It turns out not to be the body of Meredith, but Shelby’s. It’s a relief for the group, but at the same time, if the same person who did this to Shelby had Meredith and Delilah, it may not mean good things.
With Meredith, she gets a weird text from Shelby in the night. Shelby has been her client for only a short time now, but the text sends up red flags. Shelby is saying that her husband is angry with her, but when Meredith tries to reach back out she doesn’t answer. Meredith worries that Shelby may be in an abusive situation and isn’t sure how to help. This made me think that this was dropped to insinuate maybe Shelby’s husband could have had something to do with it all. When she goes to check up on Shelby the next day she seems fine but is defiantly acting weird.
Back with Leo in the present, it’s clear he continues to struggle with having his sister back, which is definitely understandable. The first night in the home they thought Delilah had run away, but really she was asleep in the basement, a space where she was comfortable. The relationship with the detective and his dad continues to weirdly really upset him for some weird reason.
Kate and Bea continue to be large supports for Josh and Leo during this hard time. One night when they two are over at their home, Josh tells them about the search warrant done on the home. Meredith had suffered postpartum after Leo was born and with her medication being found, the police were now spinning a story where she hurt herself and Delilah. This made me roll my eyes because only an extremely small percentage of women who suffer from postpartum experience drive to violence, it’s really rare. I just always hate when people hear postpartum they think oh a lady who wants to kill her kids, which isn’t true at all. Josh of course knows that this isn’t true at all, and Meredith would never do anything like this and displayed no symptoms of doing anything like that. Furthermore, the garage was also named as a potential crime scene as they found dried blood on the floor, they just don’t know who it is yet.
Back with Leo, the results are in. The DNA is certain that she’s Delilah. While Leo and his Dad already knew this, it changed how Leo felt. He knows he has to start to put in more effort with his family, and not always being the downer. The whole thing was a bit weird to me though because Leo speaks about the anger that he had towards his mother killing herself. So why would Delilah be kidnapped, and Meredith kill herself at the same time? Or did Meredith give her to these people, then kill herself? It just didn’t make any sense to me because if Delilah really was kidnapped and held captive then Meredith clearly didn’t kill herself. I was confused why no one was thinking about this yet, only Leo whose just a young teenager.
With Kate and Bea in the past, Bea is disturbed when Kate sets up an appointment with Dr. Feingold, the doctor whom Shelby and Meredith were suing. I thought this was really weird and I wasn’t exactly sure what it would tell them. It would end up telling them nothing except the guy doesn’t have a great bedside manner, but that definitely doesn’t make him a killer.
Back with Meredith, Shelby goes into labour. Meredith sees something in Shelby’s husband Jason that she doesn’t like. He’s overbearing and aggressive. I wondered if maybe he really did have something to do with Shelby’s death, and there really wasn’t any connection at all to Meredith or Delilah’s disappearance. Dr. Feingold is defiantly an ass and overconfident which leads to the malpractice but I really didn’t get the sense at all that he would have anything to do with the deaths.
With Leo in the present he tells us that on the third day of Delilah being with them, she brings up Gus. Everyone is all pissed at her that she didn’t mention that there was another person there with her who they should be looking for. Like good lord what do you expect? The girl has spent a decade in a small dark basement, give her a minute. I hated how Leo reacted to this almost making it seem like it’s her fault she didn’t say anything until now.
With Meredith again we get this stupid turn-off of the story. I’ll just break it down real quick. Meredith’s friend Cassandra is married to Meredith’s college sweetheart. The only thing is that Josh and Cassandra don’t know that the two have past, which is weird. Meredith claims they aren’t sleeping together and haven’t been romantic since their twenties. Cassandra finds out that they used to date and thinks that they are cheating on each other herself and Josh. Cassandra was the one who sent the threatening texts when she found out about their past. It was all really silly and I wished it just wasn’t a part of the book because realistically this all had nothing at all to do with the mystery, and I could tell that even before I knew the end.
Back with Meredith, she decides she needs to tell Josh about the upcoming malpractice case she will be a part of. With Cassandra now knowing about Meredith and her husband’s past she also needs to tell Josh about that before Cassandra breaks it to him herself. She’s been hiding too much from him and needs to come clean about what’s been bothering her. The two go out for dinner. The mood isn’t right for her to tell him the news. Kate and Bea show up at the same restaurant to celebrate Bea’s birthday. The four decide to all sit together and enjoy the night as a group. Everyone seems to have a good time and there are lots of drinks involved. Kate and Josh leave Bea and Meredith at the bar as the two have to work in the morning. Before the section ends Meredith insinuates that she and Bea get into some kind of car accident after they leave the bar, but that’s where it ends. I had this big OH moment at this part but I wasn’t sure if my thinking was on the right path.
With Kate she hears the news that Shelby Tebow’s baby was not her husband’s, meaning that she was cheating on him. A new motive for her murder had come to light, and her husband was now 100% the main suspect. It really didn’t seem like he would have anything to do with Meredith and Delilah. Not only that but Meredith’s car was found abandoned at a motel a few towns over. Everyone flocks to the motel to see if anything is found. Josh, Kate and Bea head over. The police eventually find the room under her name, and when they enter it, it’s not good news. Meredith is in the suite, dead. Josh of course breaks down, now losing all hope of having his family back.
Back with Meredith (and I was totally right), everything started to come together. Bea, who is too drunk to be driving, drives herself and Meredith home. One drive home Bea hits something with her car. What does it turn out to be? Shelby Tebow. Meredith of course wants to call the police, but Bea is desperate to cover everything up. Bea somehow with her threats and anger convinces Meredith that they need to take the body and dump it somewhere. Out of fear, Meredith does what she says. Look I’ll be honest I rolled my eyes a bit at this. If Meredith really wanted to she could have stood up to Bea and stopped this all but she didn’t. Now it all started to make sense to me. I just wasn’t sure at this point if Meredith really did kill herself, or if Bea did something. The big question of course still being what the hell happens with Delilah and how did she end up with those people? In the aftermath of Shelby’s death, Meredith struggles heavily with the secrets she is holding onto. She has a lot of guilt and wants to tell the truth but Bea, just being next door is keeping a close eye on her. She has so much fear of Bea and I really don’t get why. I mean yeah she’s a cold bitch but like come on now.
With Leo again we learn that Gus was never real. Leo seems to hate his sister for ‘making up this lie’ but when it’s explained to him a bit more he can have some more empathy. I am just not sure why Leo was so stuck on what Delilah says or does. I guess it is because everything she does has an effect on him. When Leo is at school one day one of Delilah’s childhood friends finds him and talks to him. She saw the picture of Delilah on the news and had a red flag. She shows him a photo of herself and Delilah as children. In the photo Delilah as a child looks extremely similar to the one in Leo’s home expect one major thing. Her friend points out that in the childhood photo of Delilah, she has a distinctive cleft chin, that the older Delilah doesn’t have. As a person with a cleft chin, I knew immediately what she was getting at. You don’t grow out of cleft chins, the girl in Leo’s home is not Delilah. But what about the DNA, and her recognizing her Dad?? I was so confused here. Leo approaches his Dad with what he now knows. His Dad struggles to believe it since the DNA said something different but knows that they can’t keep this to themselves. Turns out the detective who was sweet on Josh, falsified the DNA reports. Why the fuck she would do this I am not sure. She claims that she really thought it was her and didn’t want to break their hearts when the DNA came back. Like this wasn’t breaking their hearts now? Ugh. Well does that mean the real Delilah is dead?
Back with Meredith Delilah is sick so she calls off for the day to stay home with her. Bea comes by the house to check on Meredith and see if she is keeping their secret, she’s very serious about it being kept. Meredith tells her that she wants to tell the truth, and they take responsibility. Bea tells her no but Meredith tells her she’s going to do it always. The two are arguing out in the garage. Delilah comes to the garage door looking for Meredith, and when Meredith gives her attention Bea hits her over the head with a hammer.
Again with Leo, the police come back to the house with them to pack with non-Delilah’s things. It’s found that she’s really a missing girl named Carly. Carly’s captors had wanted to enjoy the feeling of being a part of a high-profile crime and kidnapped her since she looked like Delilah. They then told her that she was Delilah and showed her photos of Delilah’s parents in the paper. This seemed a bit odd to me, but I guess it was the only way to explain this. When Carly goes to pack up her things she runs out the window.
With Meredith, Bea drives them out of town. She takes Meredith to the motel and tells her she needs to stay here and stay calm. If she’s good Bea will bring her Delilah. If she doesn’t Meredith worries Bea will hurt Delilah, because it’s clear she doesn’t have any worries about hurting anyone. Bea makes Meredith write a note saying Delilah is fine, but that they will never find her. Meredith doesn’t want to do it but fears Bea will hurt her. When she finishes Bea kills her and tries to make it look like a suicide but doesn’t do the greatest job. I felt bad for Meredith, but if she had done the right thing earlier a lot of this wouldn’t have happened. She had so much time to call the cops when Bea wasn’t around her and didn’t.
The book ends off with a perspective from Kate, but it’s not in the past it’s in the now. Josh, Leo and the police come to their door to tell them Carly had run from the home and were wanting to know if they had seen her. Bea and Kate hadn’t. They ask to look in the shed in their backyard, which is used as Bea’s music studio. Bea gets all weird about letting them in there, and I was like shit. How the hell could she have kept Delilah in this shed without Kate knowing? When Bea goes to get the key to the shed she of course runs. When the police eventually get into the shed, Delilah is in there. For all these years she had just been a yard away from her family. It was crazy to me that no one ever suspected it, but I guess at the same time why would they. The ending just felt a bit flat to me. It ends with Kate telling Bea to not contact her anymore from prison, Delilah back with her family, and Carly back with her family. I mean it was a somewhat happy ending so I am glad that Delilah was able to get back home to her family.
I hope you enjoyed this review! Have you checked out Local Woman Missing before or any of Mary Kubica’s other work? What did you think? Feel free to follow me on all my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!
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