Review: What Happened to the Bennetts--Surprise Motive I Never Saw Coming!

What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Part One of the book was kind of slow and I wasn't sure I would continue. A senseless car jacking results in the death of a young girl and her family is whisked away into Witness Protection that very night. The story, heavy with sadness and chaos and confusion seemed to bog down. As the family begins to emerge from the shock and depression of the situation the characters began to take shape. Mother and young son seem unable to function at all but the Father starts to come alive. Though the loss of his daughter is an ever present burden, he begins running with one of the FBI agents each day and to begin to question how the car jacking happened and why his family needs to be protected.
The Bennetts, Lucinda, the mother and Ethan, the young son are very real. She is outspoken and rebellious at having to tow the line. She wants to contact her best friend and needs to contact her mother, who is in a nursing home with early stage Altzheimers. Ethan is devastated at the loss of his sister and frightened. He, too, is having a hard time not being able to contact his friends and their families. He takes solace with his dog, Moonie but shows not interest in his surroundings or offers of game playing by one of the agents, Wiki. Jason, the father, feeling the need to protect his family and obey the rules of WitSec is at odds with Lucinda, though he is supported by the other Agent, Dom, with whom he is forming a bond. This small group in a house on the Delaware shore is very well defined and the reader feels a part of it.
Once Jason happens to read the lips of an arriving new agent, and understands, at least part of the reason the shooter who killed his daughter, Allison, is not in captivity, the book takes on a whole new tone and path. Jason, too, becomes a new, more focused and active character who takes off to determine just what the truth behind this situation is and who is in control. The twists and turns kept me up til the wee hours to finish the book. Totally, didn't see that coming!!

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