n Church's debut thriller, a California schoolteacher's search for her missing father in 1970s Barbados puts her in the middle of an ongoing fight over a much-desired piece of land. . . . Church manages, quite impressively, to maintain a sense of a hidden but perpetual threat. . . . More than one man offers the possibility of romance, but these instances of tenderness are obscured by the constant, exhilarating atmosphere of distrust. Church's indelible descriptions of Perfidia, meanwhile, turn even an innocuous cane field into something unnerving: "Dense foliage on either side of the path topped by the blackness of the sky created a tunnel alive with dappled shadows." There are plenty of shocks throughout the story, including revelations about the land's history and about a few characters' relationships. . . . Overpowering dread and a leery protagonist make this a suspenseful read.