All the Dangerous Things

Isabelle Drake hasn’t been able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time for the past year. Night and day, she’s obsessed with who stole her baby son, Mason, and where he is now. She’s barely functional, but pushes on with her investigation, hounding the police for news and harassing those she finds suspicious. Her husband has had enough and taken off, leaving Isabelle to ruminate on how their romance, which started when he was her married boss, had such promise but became “like peeling back expensive wallpaper and finding black mold underneath.” Attending a true-crime conference to find more suspects, she meets a podcaster who becomes pivotal to the case, investigating alongside the distraught mother as she spirals further down into sleeplessness and murky flashbacks to a childhood of sleepwalking and family dysfunction. Willingham (A Flicker in the Dark, 2022) draws readers through dark depths into what is much more than a kidnapping tale, with a love that can push its way through even the toughest barriers. Fans of the movie “Memento” will enjoy this unstable main character and her stubborn push for the truth.