It may seem like Stacy Willingham's follow-up to "A Flicker in the Dark" is just another "Gone Girl"-ish thriller in which we can't trust the narrator because she has addiction and trauma issues. It is that, but it's also yet another thriller that leans into the true-crime podcasting phenomenon.
Willingham mashes up those elements in the tale of Isabelle, whose infant son disappeared a year before the book's events begin. She gets help from a podcaster — who, improbably, the supposedly suspicious Isabelle asks to move in with her — as she tries to figure out who napped her kid.
Her ex-husband, who moved on from the tragedy with shocking speed? Her peculiar neighbor, who keeps spying on her (or maybe not — she's paranoid)? A true-crime fanatic? All of the beats of "Things" are familiar but, as in "Flicker," Willingham skillfully blends them into a twist-crammed mystery.
Chris Hewitt is a feature writer and critic at the Star Tribune.
All the Dangerous Things
By: Stacy Willingham.
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 336 pages, $27.99.
