Book review: Idaho by Emily Ruskovich

The forty-first book I read in 2017 was Idaho by Emily Ruskovich.  This debut novel, set in the titular state, deals with Wade Mitchell's second wife Ann and her obsessive drive to understand the unthinkable family tragedy in his past.

Ruskovich's writing is beautiful, her characters deep, and the story is compelling ... at least until you realize that the author is going to offer no resolution.  Ann's precarious home life and her covert inquiries seem to be building tension toward a "The calls are coming from inside the house!" reveal which, if it existed, would have had the film rights to this book optioned six ways from Sunday, but instead all the loosely-gathered threads just unravel again.  That's fair -- the book wasn't marketed as a thriller -- but it leaves the reader unsatisfied. 

There's also a tertiary (quaternary?) character who is so tangentially related to the main plot that you feel certain he's going to end up being important, but, again, his storyline just peters out without ever reconnecting with the main narrative.  I have the feeling that perhaps an earlier draft of this book exists which did offer resolution and the author just couldn't bear to excise the character despite his failure to contribute anything but misdirection from the story.