The One I Left Behind

A gut-wrenching mystery about an architect whose troubled mother has been found 25 years after being kidnapped - by a killer who is still on the loose. Set in the summer of 1985, when a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women, leaving their severed hands on the police department steps and their bodies displayed around town. Just when the protagonist's mother Vera is needed the most, her hand is found but no body. Now a successful architect, the protagonist is forced to confront her past and find Neptune before he kills again. Jennifer McMahon portrays the dark side of adolescent friendship and introduces haunting characters, along with a web of secrets, betrayals, and murder.