A Trio of Missing Links

I've told you before how much I love to read when I travel (to see that post, click here). Last week I flew to and from Arkansas, which gave me plenty of time to finish three books I've been looking forward to reading.
When I selected them, I didn't realize there was a link between them. But there is – or rather there is a missing link among them. You wouldn't think that was the case when you see that the list includes a nonfiction book, a modern fairy tale, and a young adult selection. Read on to discover more.

After Visiting Friends

by Michael Hainey
Maybe it's the fact that Michael Hainey is a journalist. Maybe it's just a son wanting to know more about his father. But whatever it was that caused Hainey to investigate the death of his father, he got much more than he bargained for. When he was six, Hainey's uncle had the unfortunate task of telling him that his father had died. A 35-year-old assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob Hainey's obituary said he had died "after visiting friends." Who were those "friends"? And why was his father there in the early dawn hours? Those questions haunted Michael Hainey from his youth. Once he reached the age his father had been when he died, Hainey decided to finally discover the missing link: the truth. This real-life mystery shines a light on the world of hard-core news journalists, on a young widow trying to cope after the death of her husband, and on a young boy who needs to find his father.

Some Kind of Fairy Tale

by Graham Joyce
When Tara Martin reappears on her parents' doorstep on Christmas Day, it's more than a holiday miracle. Although she's been missing for over 20 years, Tara looks exactly like the teenager she was when she disappeared. Her parents are overjoyed, but her brother is suspicious. How can Tara still be 16 when everyone else has aged? Tara's story doesn't help allay his fears – she insists that she's only been gone six months, and that she was stolen by fairies. Determined to prove that she's telling the truth, Tara agrees to see a psychiatrist, to undergo physical tests, and to make amends to those she left behind. Everything seems to back up her assertion that she had been captive in another world, particularly when something seems to have followed her back.

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein
A plane piloted by a young WAC crashes into the French countryside in 1943, separating Maddie from her passenger, her best friend who has the code name of Verity. Verity is captured by the Gestapo and is tortured to reveal everything she can remember about British codes, the gathering Allied forces, and the sites of landing fields in England. No one would blame Verity for telling all she knows under the dire conditions she faces, and very few would be able to withstand the pain and the loneliness. But as she barters for her life with all of her secrets, Verity also reveals her friendship with Maddie and their life together in war-time England. Full of surprising twists and turns, this one kept me reading far into the night.