All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. ItтАЩs the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist; she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed of a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as тАЬtroubled waters.тАЭ
Now Imogene is seventeen, and her father, a famous author of medical mysteries, has struck out in the middle of the night and hasnтАЩt come back. Neither ImogeneтАЩs stepmother nor the police know where he couldтАЩve gone, but Imogene is convinced heтАЩs looking for her mother. And she decides itтАЩs up to her to put to use the skills sheтАЩs gleaned from a lifetime of reading her fatherтАЩs books to track down a woman sheтАЩs only known in stories in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question sheтАЩs carried with her for her entire life.
Rebecca Podos is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of YA novels, including The Mystery of Hollow Places, Like Water, and The Wise and the Wicked, and co-editor of the YA anthology Fools in Love. Find her online at www.rebeccapodos.com.