Foster pens intense thriller

“Beneath the Shadows.” By Sara Foster. Minotaur. $24.99.

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Australian author Sara Foster uncovers a rich vein of atmosphere in the North Yorkshire moors for her intense psychological thriller about a woman trying to rebuild her life after her husband disappears.

A touch of the supernatural and family ghost tales add to the already spooky landscape that blankets Foster’s debut. But Foster’s dabbling in the occult doesn’t subtract from the realistic fears and down-to-earth problems explored in “Beneath the Shadows.” Foster uses the sub-genre of the quiet, nonviolent English village mystery to gracefully weave in the themes of loss, grief and abandonment in “Beneath the Shadows.”

Grace and Adam Lockwood have just moved from London with Millie, their 10-week-old daughter, to the remote village of Roseby where he has an inherited a cottage from his grandparents. Adam spent a little time in Roseby as a teenager after his mother died and he has fond memories of Hawthorn Cottage, the village and the surrounding moors. One week after the move, Adam takes Millie for a walk while Grace continues to unpack. A few hours later, Grace finds Millie in her stroller, unharmed, at their doorstep, but Adam has disappeared.

A year later, Grace finally finds the strength to return to Roseby. She needs to settle matters about the cottage and also to try to find out what happened to Adam, who has never been found. The police and many Roseby residents believe he just left, unable to handle the responsibilities of fatherhood. Grace becomes friendly with Meredith Blakeney, a leader in the tight-knit community, and a handyman named Ben, who works on the cottage while Grace sorts through the boxes left by Adam’s grandparents, “dismantling the last traces of their lives.” Family secrets and tales of ghosts haunt Grace’s attempts to find out what happened to her husband.

Foster skillfully uses the village’s isolation and the moors where “the raw, untouched vistas had the power to stop your mind” as a metaphor for Grace’s own isolation. Grace’s grief influences each of her actions, and her parents, her sister and an old friend worry that she may verge on a mental breakdown. Grace is obsessive about finding out if Adam left or if something more sinister happened and the reader empathizes with her emotional state.

The absorbing plot of “Beneath the Shadows” shows that a quiet, nonviolent mystery can pack a lot of punch.