A review by ckausch
What Happened to Cass McBride? by Gail Giles

2.0

In What Happened to Cass McBride?, Gail Giles unfolds a mystery that is more than a traditional “whodunit.” The novel opens when Cass McBride falls asleep in her bed, only to wake up buried in a dark box. The story is told by three different characters in alternating chapters, with Cass in the box, trying to find out why she is there and if she might ever escape, a cop – Ben - trying to figure out where Cass has disappeared, and Kyle, the young man who put Cass in the box. Cass and Ben’s chapters are told in real time, while Kyle relays his story in flashback from an interrogation room, after he has been arrested, without giving away whether Cass survived. Cass is one of the popular girls in school, and the reader learns that every thing she does is calculated and planned. She had recently turned down a date with Kyle’s younger brother, who then went home and committed suicide. Kyle blames the loss of his brother on Cass, and intends to prolong her terror underground as payback. High school cliques are not to be blamed, however, as it is revealed how all three young adults have suffered from emotional abuse and the withholding of parental affection.