Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult deals with the issue of what to do when the "right" thing is illegal.   Charles is married to an alcoholic and has a 4-yr.-old girl.  Not only that, but he discovers his wife is cheating on him with Victor and they get divorced.  Charles "rescues" his little girl by taking her from Arizona to live with him in New Hampshire under new names (Andrew and Delia) instead of returning her home after his day with her.  Delia grows up happy but doesn't remember much of her mother.  Ironically, she grows up and helps detectives and police search and rescue missing people with her dog, Greta.  Thirty years later, he is arrested for kidnapping.  Will he be found guilty and spend 20 years in prison?  What will Delia think of him for lying to her practically her whole life?  He told her that her mother died in a car accident.   Will she marry her long-time friend, Eric, a recovering alcoholic and lawyer, or choose her other long-time friend Fritz, a journalist.

This book was pretty good because it had a surprise ending and I liked the tension between liking Andrew even though he did technically kidnap his daughter.  I felt a little bad for the mother and Delia.  There were some parts that I did not care about, but they didn't last long.  I did not like the way the book jumped around between the past and present, but the story line was good and I did like Delia and her father, Andrew, the main characters.
(Karen's review, 4 stars)

Teaser from page 75:  On the one hand, I was his child, and he must have been doing what he felt he needed to do.  On the other hand, I'm a mother now, and he committed my worst nightmare.

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