The Book:
Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett
Published April 30, 2024 by Mulholland Books
Date read: May 16, 2024
Find more April 2024 releases here.
Missing White Woman spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Bree and her boyfriend Ty
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
This page contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this site.
The Plot (from Goodreads):
It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything—the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline.
But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, Ty is nowhere to be found and there’s a stranger dead in the foyer—the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed Janelle Beckett. Soon, both the police and an army of Internet sleuths are asking questions Bree doesn’t know how to answer. Desperate to find Ty and to keep her own secrets buried, Bree realizes there’s only one person she can turn her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past.
Fierce, smart, and thrilling to the end, Missing White Woman not only explores “Missing White Woman” syndrome and traveling while Black, but deftly inverts the hallmarks of the domestic suspense genre to How well can we truly know the people we love? And what happens to these stories when seen through the eyes of a Black woman?
Missing White Woman Spoilers
The Reveal:
The TikTok influencer Billie revealed that Janelle and Ty knew each other, leading Bree to believe that Ty was cheating on her with Janelle. Billie’s followers went on a manhunt for Ty, who had disappeared after the body was found. Then Ty’s body was found in a nearby park. Was it suicide or murder? Bree was asked to identify Ty’s body. She was doxxed, and Becca’s followers decided that Bree had murdered both Ty and Janelle.
Later in the story, Bree remembered the furtive call that Ty had made on their last day together. Ty was a financial manager, and he had said the call was about an important crypto deal. The number was still in her phone’s history, so Bree called it back. The voicemail identified Lori. A Google search told Bree that Lori was the neighbor, whose husband was supposed to be keeping an eye on the Airbnb that Bree and Ty had stayed in.
Bree went back to talk to Miss Morgan, the Black woman she had befriended early in her vacation. Miss Morgan told her that she suspected Lori’s husband was abusing her, at least emotionally, and keeping Lori dependent on him for money. Miss Morgan showed Bree a picture of Lori, and Bree realized that she looked remarkably similar to Janelle.
Bree reminded the reader that despite everyone in Jersey City knowing about Janelle’s disappearance, the police had been extremely slow to make an official identification. She wondered if that was because the dead woman was actually Lori. She hypothesized that Ty was working over the weekend to help Lori get enough money to escape her abusive husband. No one had seen Lori since Thursday night, but Bree saw someone going into her house Friday night–this person was Janelle.
Janelle was impersonating Lori and letting the public think that Lori’s dead body was hers. Bree went live on Instagram to tell the public her thoughts and let them find “Lori”. Someone who saw the Live identified “Lori” by the covid face mask and realized she’d delivered DoorDash to her. This let Bree know that Janelle had stayed in town because she didn’t have the funds to leave. They were still on the crypto key that Bree had seen Ty with before he died. Bree went back to the AirBnb and found the key.
The Ending:
Towards the end of the book, Billie very suspiciously visited Bree in her hotel. Bree came back later to find the room tossed, but Billie hadn’t found the crypto key. Billie and Janelle were in on the theft together.
Bree left to go home, giving up on playing detective. She happened to run into Janelle on the train platform, though. Janelle waved to Bree like she’d won, but Bree showed her the crypto key that she had in her pocket as the train was pulling away. Bree called the police and told them that Janelle was on the train headed towards Princeton Junction. Janelle was arrested.
Billie disappeared the same day, closing down her TikTok account. The epilogue is the transcript of another influencer’s TikTok Live. It lets the reader know that Bree donated the crypto drive to a domestic abuse charity. The influencer implies though that she thinks Billie is alive in Paris, spending the money that Janelle stole.
A Question:
If you’ve read this one, I can’t remember how/why Janelle and Billie knew about the money. I’m assuming Lori regretably confided in Janelle and Janelle told Billie and convinced her to go along with the theft, but I don’t remember if this was specifically mentioned. If someone could fill in this gap, it would be greatly appreciated!
What do you think happened to Billie?
I hope these Missing White Woman spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
Thank you to Mulholland Books and Little Brown Book Club for sending my book club gifted copies of Missing White Woman! I really enjoyed this thriller, and can’t wait to discuss it as a group.
I was hooked from the beginning: I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to the woman that Bree discovered and to figure out if Ty was involved.
I really enjoyed Bree as an MC. She was determined to uncover the truth and prove Ty’s innocence. Her thought process was easy to agree with for the most part, which makes for a likeable main character.
This book discusses racism in an extremely graceful manner. An important point is certainly being made, but it’s woven seamlessly into the story so that the reader comes to the desired realization on their own. I felt for Bree and how she could never truly relax on her vacation–even before the stranger turned up dead–as white locals were constantly suspicious of her just because of her skin color. The author also addresses the impact that social media has on our news consumption, and how hard it is these days to know whether you’re getting the truth.
This was the first book I’ve read by Kellye Garrett, but I’m certainly interested in reading some of her backlist.
Follow me on Bloglovin’!
1 Comment