July 1, 2020
A father's quest for his kidnapped daughter, gone 13 years, may finally have borne fruit. Hausmann's debut, translated from the German, revolves around a young woman who has been held captive in a windowless forest cabin on the border between Bavaria and the Czech Republic. As the story opens, she has escaped, one of her two children in tow, only to be hit by a car on the road just outside the woods. She's in intensive care, unable to explain much of anything; her daughter, Hannah, though extremely intelligent, has developmental issues that make her unhelpful to investigators as well. Once it's determined that the injured woman's name is Lena, the police are able to connect her with a 13-year-old cold case involving the disappearance of a college student in Munich. The round-robin narration switches among Lena, Hannah, and Lena's father, Matthias Beck. Matthias has been counting and cursing the days--4,825 of them--since his daughter went missing. Now, at last, he gets the call he's been waiting for, and he and his wife accompany the police investigator, a close family friend, to the hospital--only to find out the woman in the bed is not their Lena. But wait--there's a little girl in the hallway who is their daughter's spitting image. Hausmann's novel has been billed as Room meets Gone Girl for its combination of mother and kids locked up in a hidey-hole with dueling, often dissimulating, unreliable narrators. But both of those blockbuster antecedents are strongly character-driven. Here, possibly in the interest of withholding information, the author has failed to make the central characters seem like real people, and the supporting ones are barely outlined. For this reason, the reveals in the latter part of the book are less exciting than they should be. The plot is sufficiently creepy and twisty, but without well-developed characters, the reader's buy-in will be limited.

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Starred review from August 3, 2020
Early in German author Hausmann’s outstanding debut, a woman is hit by a car in a forest on the German-Czech border. The police believe the victim may be Lena Beck, a college student who disappeared in Munich 13 years earlier. After a search of the forest reveals a windowless cabin, a horrific story begins taking shape: Lena was abducted and forced to live in captivity while giving birth to a girl and a boy. When Lena’s father, Matthias, arrives at the hospital to identify his daughter, however, he says it’s not her. But the young girl with her—the woman’s alleged daughter—looks exactly like a younger Lena. A DNA test confirms both children are, in fact, Matthias’s grandchildren. As the traumatized woman and the two kids struggle to adapt to life outside of the cabin, Matthias vows to find out what happened to his daughter. The multiple points of view and numerous plot twists sustain the breakneck pacing, but the book’s real power lies in the author’s insightful and sensitive portrayal of the characters involved in the tragedy. This darkly disturbing thriller definitely marks Hausmann as a writer to watch.

Starred review from October 1, 2020

DEBUT For 4,993 days and nights, Matthias Beck waits for the call revealing the whereabouts of his daughter Lena, dead or alive. A victim of a hit-and-run accident, bearing a distinctive scar, seems certain to be the young woman who disappeared 13 years ago in Munich. Heartbroken Matthias knows disappointment again when it is not his daughter--until the appearance of a young girl, the victim's daughter, Hannah, who looks exactly like his Lena as a child. Three traumatized narrators, each a liar, tell their stories, but it is eerily intelligent Hannah who reveals their disturbing existence in an isolated windowless cabin where Papa controls them to an agonizing degree. Lena sleeps chained to a bed, using the bathroom at appointed times, and all must employ impeccable manners, for they are the perfect family now, despite the abuse. When Lena seizes her chance to escape, the trauma is not over. VERDICT Hausmann's English-language debut is absorbing and sinister, with a tightening web of psychological intrigue. Tiny clues are steadily inserted into this fast-paced, shivery tale with an unforeseen denouement. Inevitably likened to Emma Donoghue's Room, also suggest Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes.--Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL

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Starred review from October 1, 2020
There are so many twists?all of them shocking?in TV writer Hausmann's debut thriller that it's hard to offer a plot description without giving the game away. In short, the book starts where Emma Donoghue's Room ends: with a kidnapped, long-imprisoned woman escaping. On the other side of the story are Matthias and Karin Beck, whose daughter, Lena, has been missing for years. When the Becks show up for an emotional reunion, the twists and turns start, told from the points of view of the imprisoned woman, two children born in the freezing cabin where she was held, the Becks, and those trying to help the traumatized former prisoners build new lives. One of the children, Hannah, is a major character here. She is meticulously written, with her autism, trauma, and echoes of the horrific life she thought normal combining to create a child, like Jack in Room, whom readers will never forget. As unsettling as they come, this outstanding debut, translated from German, is recommended not only to Donoghue's fans, but also to those who enjoy true crime, as the verisimilitude here is second to none. The movie can't be far behind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)