Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay

David Harwood is despondent. He has lost his job in Boston as a reporter. His wife is dead and he is moving back to live with his parents and his nine year old son. He gets a local job as a reporter and on the day he starts work, the paper folds up. Nothing could be more bleak for David.

His cousin Marla has been a little strange for a very long time. The loss of her baby has affected her and though she is holding it together, it is just barely there. When David visits her and finds a baby in her house, he knows that something is amiss. The fact that she insists that an angel visited her and gave her the baby adds to the mystery. David knows that the police are not going to be as kind to Marla as the family is. The discovery of a body which turns out to be the baby's mother and a string of strange circumstances with apparent links back to Marla makes David think that this is not just an abduction of a baby and a murder of a young mother.

The story was slow at the beginning for me despite the kidnapping and the murder! but it did pick up when the investigations went along. The college incidents of attempted rape and oddities happening around Promise Falls detracted from the main story but the clincher at the end was very good with readers now being able to look forward to a second book! it came in unexpectedly and was very well enacted.

This book was sent to me by Netgalley courtesy of Penguin Group, Berkeley Nal. Thank you.