Hidden Pictures

 

By Jason Rekulak

Mallory Quinn became addicted to prescription pain relievers after being injured in a car crash. She hit rock bottom and overdosed in the back of an Uber and ended up in rehab. Now she's been clean for about a year and a half and is starting her first job in a long time as a full time babysitter for an upper middle class family living in a small, rural town. 

Caroline and Ted Maxwell and their child, Teddy, seem to be a lovely family. Their large house features a full-size swimming pool and a pool house that had been remodeled into an tiny home for the new babysitter. It will be the first time Mallory has lived alone in a long time. It will be a test of her commitment to staying off drugs. 

Of course, things are never quite as good as they appear. Teddy has been drawing pictures, pictures that become more and more skilled and more and more strange over time. In one picture, a man appears to be dragging a woman's body through the woods. In another it looks like the woman is at the bottom of a hole as the man stands above looking down. Teddy claims his invisible friend, Anya, tells him what to draw.

After listening to the local gossip, Mallory becomes convinced that Teddy is channeling the spirit of a woman who vanished back in 1948 who used to live at the house where the Maxwells now live. And the woman, Annie, was an artist who used the pool house as a studio. So Mallory begins looking into Annie's past, helped by her new friend, a local man, Adrian, because she is worried that Teddy is being damaged by Anya. And Teddy's parents just keep dismissing her concerns. But her and Adrian's investigations lead them in a totally unexpected direction. 

This was an interesting mystery/thriller/ghost story. At some point, Adrian and Mallory figure out that the spirit hanging around Teddy communicates by drawing because the spirit doesn't speak English and that Anya means mommy in her language. Which then leads them to a better understanding of the communication they received from her via a spirit board which they had first dismissed as gibberish.

I was totally not expecting the direction the story takes in last part. Frankly, I missed some clues the author gives that reveal the Maxwell family is not what they appear to be. It's always a pleasure to be surprised by the ending of a novel. For quite a while, I was beginning to think the evil doer in the story was actually Mallory, who lies to her new friend Adrian about her past. Which was a pretty good red herring. 

The novel includes Teddy's/Anya's drawings and it really adds a wonderful dimension to the story. They start out as typical little kid drawings but change into skilled artistic images that are just a pleasure to experience. Well done to the artists, Will Staehle and Doogie Horner.

Here is a review by Kirkus.