It might seem like author Dervla McTiernan ripped the plot for her latest thriller straight from a news story: A young man returns alone from a trip with his girlfriend. The young woman is nowhere to be found.
But What Happened to Nina? is much more than a lurid headline. It is the story of an interesting and pretty young woman, Nina, and what happens to her family in the wake of her disappearance. It’s the story of her longtime love interest, Simon Jordan, and his parents, who have to deal with the suspicions and rumors swirling around their son.
Nina Fraser is the daughter of a Vermont innkeeper and a landscaper. Simon’s father is a wealthy entrepreneur. His mother’s hobby is selling her designer clothes online to stuff her “retirement fund.” She’s sure her husband’s going to divorce her at some point.
Nina and Simon are avid hikers, and head up to his parents’ lavish new vacation home in Stowe. When the Frasers can’t reach Nina, they worry. When they realize Simon is back home with his parents and says he has no idea where his girlfriend is, they become frantic.
The police get involved. Both families turn to social media for help, but that quickly escalates, and not in a good way. The Jordans have both means and connections; they raise doubts about the Frasers that threaten to turn the community against the family and ruin their livelihoods.
All the parents have issues. Leanne Fraser’s rough childhood has left her emotionally damaged. Her husband, Andy, seems like a rock by comparison, but as tensions build, so does his temper. Jamie Jordan is clueless, while Rory Jordan is both ruthless and determined to protect his son at all costs.
Violence erupts more than once as the parents face off, unable to think clearly in the midst of the crisis. All the adults behave badly, but I definitely rooted for one side over the other.
The tension builds to a boiling point before the book ends in a satisfying, yet unsettling, way.
McTiernan, an Irish-born Australian, takes a risk in setting her book in New England. We natives get pretty prickly about mistakes involving our territory. But I detected none as I raced through this fast-paced and thought-provoking novel.
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