Lou Berney — The Long and Faraway Gone

This novel is two separate stories about two separate people in the same time and place (Oklahoma City, 2012), who are on torturous journeys into their past lives.

Julianna received word that “a person of interest” in her sister’s disappearance is in town. Julianna was twelve when her sister disappeared. It starts her down the path she thought she had abandoned of trying to find out what became of her sister 25 years earlier.

Wyatt, a private investigator from Las Vegas returns to his hometown on a case. He left 25 years ago at the age of fifteen. Returning to Oklahoma City stirs memories and questions about an incident which still haunts him. Six people were murdered in a robbery of the movie theater where he worked. He was the only person in the theater left alive that night.

The book alternates between the two characters and two times (1986 and 2012). It’s almost two novels wrapped into one with various plots and subplots. Very unusual and very well written, it kept my interest from beginning to end.