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Published Mar 2022
384 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
After he was gone, the only things left behind were secrets.
Annie has fallen out of the habit of listening to her husband. She and Paul have been married for a long time; it's easy to nod as he drones on, responding to his voice while completely ignoring every word he says. That becomes a problem, of course, when Paul disappears and the police have questions. Was Paul having issues at work? Is there any reason to think he might harm himself? Annie doesn't know.
But someone does.
An unsettling photo found amongst Paul's things turns the investigation toward his job as a middle school teacher and a troubled girl who is hiding secrets of her own. But what exactly happened to Paul on the day he left for work and never made it to the classroom? Is his disappearance related to a local heroin trafficking operation? As Eddie Mahler and the members of the Santa Rosa Violent Crime Investigations Team rush to find the teacher, they discover the members of his family have hidden lives of their own, and that Paul may not have been running away but toward something that could ruin his career and marriage―and even cost his life.
"[E]xcellent...The VCI team members aren't cynical, wise-cracking super cops; on the contrary, they're troubled individuals who accept that 'people are complex' and capable of all kinds of foolish, noble, and destructive actions. Weisel does a terrific job blending police procedural with character study." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An excellent police procedural raised to a higher level by the in-depth look at the lives of the people who work the crimes." - Kirkus Reviews
"A beguiling mix of literature and crime." - Booklist
"Compelling and utterly original, both as a procedural and a novel of human frailty, Frederick Weisel's The Day He Left begins as a missing-persons investigation that blossoms into a much larger story touching all of the players, detectives, and survivors alike: a novel written with remarkable compassion and understanding." - J.P. Smith, author of The Drowning
"Frederick Weisel expertly weaves together an intriguing cast of characters in The Day He Left, pulling us along for the ride at breakneck speed. Atmospheric, peppered with humor, laced with suspense, this story kept me on my toes until the very last page." - Gina LaManna, USA Today bestselling author
This information about The Day He Left was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Frederick Weisel has been a writer and editor for more than 30 years. He graduated from Antioch College and has an MA in Victorian Literature and History from the University of Leicester in England. His short stories were awarded an Artists Fellowship from the Massachusetts Arts and Humanities Foundation, and his articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Christian Science Monitor.
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