Vicki is a trained aromatherapist. She is trained to help people with their stressors, with their challenges, with their fears. She is careful, reasoned, always thinking through what she is doing, being mindful of the chances she might be taking. She works for herself, out of her own home, so that she can always stay in control. Control is important, when you have the kinds of secrets that Vicki has.

But you know what you can’t control? When the police come knocking on the door, telling you that your ex-husband has been missing. That he went missing after witnesses saw you harassing him on the streets of London. The sudden arrival of two police officers at Vicki’s house sends her carefully controlled life into a dangerous spiral, and she finds herself taking chances that could bring her sanity or even her life to the brink.

Scarlet is only 8 years old, but she is old enough to help her mother out. She has learned how to play the game, so that the strange men who come up to her and push her on the swings with their packages for her mother can trust her to offer them some of her potato chips and to carry the package back to her mother safely. She’s proud of how much she helps her mom with the game and helps her out at home when she’s not feeling well, so when the police show up and take her away, she is inconsolable.

After the first foster home, where the older kids puts Scarlet’s naivete and drug dealing “game” skills to work stealing DVDs, Scarlet finds herself in a genuinely caring family where she can grow up relatively in peace. But growing up away from her mother is still heart-breaking, and she never forgets.

Jane Corry’s The Dead Ex is a masterful chess game of a novel, a slow unveiling of the stories of four vastly different women and how they ultimately intersect. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on this story, there is another huge revelation, a sudden right turn, and you’re left with more questions than answers. But the ride is definitely worth it, as you find yourself putting the last pieces into place and finding out how all the disparate stories come together as one. It’s another twisty novel from Jane Corry, where she takes you on a crazy journey from famine to feast, from prison to a mansion, from isolation to family, and everywhere in between.

Galleys for The Dead Ex were provided by Pamela Dorman Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks.