Unmissing

Unmissing (2022) is a psychological thriller by Minka Kent, a Washington Post and Wall Street Journal best-selling author. Kent is known for other suspense novels such as The Watcher Girl and When I Was You. The novel centers on Merritt Coletto, whose perfect family life is shattered when her husband’s first wife, Lydia—missing and presumed dead for 10 years—reappears with a story of abduction and survival. As Lydia integrates herself into their lives, Merritt must confront the secrets threatening to destroy the world she has carefully built. The narrative explores themes including Deception as Self-Preservation, The Destructive Pursuit of a Perfect Facade, and Redefining Victimhood and Agency.

This guide refers to the 2022 Thomas & Mercer edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide contain depictions of sexual content, death, graphic violence, sexual violence, rape, physical abuse, emotional abuse, substance use, addiction, mental illness, animal cruelty, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

The narrative opens 10 years in the past, when 21-year-old Lydia Glass is newly married to 26-year-old Luca Coletto, an aspiring restaurateur. One day, Lydia is abducted while hiking near their home in Bent Creek, Oregon. After being sedated with chloroform, she awakens zip-tied in a remote cabin where she is held captive by an unknown man, whom she internally dubs “The Monster.”

In the present day, Merritt Coletto, 41, Luca’s current wife, is eight months pregnant with their second child. She answers her door to a gaunt woman claiming to be Lydia, who has long been presumed dead. Believing the woman is an imposter, Merritt turns her away and locks her doors.

Homeless and desperate, Lydia seeks work in Bent Creek and is hired by Delphine DuBois, the kind, intuitive owner of a new-age shop called The Blessed Alchemist. Delphine offers Lydia a room in her apartment, believing her to be recovering from addiction and in need of a fresh start. Lydia keeps her true identity a secret, planning to confront Luca on her own terms. She soon encounters Merritt at a local grocery store, where she proves her identity by revealing intimate details about Luca’s habits and personal history. Shaken, Merritt begins to believe the woman’s story and confirms her resemblance to Lydia by finding old news articles online.

Merritt arranges a meeting for Lydia to confront Luca upon his return from a business trip. When he arrives, Lydia recounts a harrowing tale of being kidnapped and held captive for nine years by “The Monster,” who subjected her to relentless torture before shooting her and leaving her for dead. The revelation leaves Luca shocked and speechless. It puts immense strain on his marriage to Merritt, who tries to befriend Lydia and offers her financial assistance, hoping to convince her to leave Bent Creek and protect her family. Lydia, however, has other plans: She knows Luca was her captor but keeps this to herself. She confronts Luca at his flagship restaurant and leverages his fear of being exposed as her husband and kidnapper. She extorts him, demanding a job as an assistant manager that pays $1,000 per day, in cash. With his restaurant franchise failing, Luca reluctantly agrees and lies to Merritt, claiming he hired Lydia as a gesture of goodwill.

Lydia reveals the truth to her former boss, Delphine, confessing that Luca was her captor. Meanwhile, Merritt gives birth to a son, Everett. While Luca is with Merritt at the hospital, Lydia enters his unlocked office and uses a paper clip to open a file cabinet, where she makes a horrifying discovery: He took out multi-million-dollar life insurance policies on her before her disappearance. There are also life insurance policies for Merritt, and their young daughter, Elsie. Fearing Luca intends to murder his new family for the insurance payout, Lydia grows frantic. Her alarm intensifies when Luca convinces Merritt to take the children to their remote farmhouse in Willow Branch under the guise of a family getaway. Finding their home empty, Lydia goes to the police, but a detective explains that without evidence that the family is in immediate danger, he cannot act on her suspicions alone.

Using GPS coordinates Luca had previously texted her, Lydia finds the farmhouse. She thinks he texted her the coordinates as bait, so she enters at night. She restrains a sleeping Luca, cuffing him to the bed with zip ties, determined to force a confession out of him. When Merritt discovers them, Lydia presents the insurance policies as proof of Luca’s murderous intent. Luca retaliates by accusing Merritt of having planned the original kidnapping and insurance scheme years ago. Merritt vehemently denies it, gaining Lydia’s sympathy and trust.

As Lydia helps Merritt prepare to flee with the children, Merritt attacks Lydia from behind, hitting her with a marble bookend and knocking her unconscious. While Luca is still bound, Merritt reveals the truth: She did orchestrate Lydia’s kidnapping to fund her life with Luca. However, she has realized that Luca is now plotting to kill her and the children for their own insurance policies. After this confession, Merritt fatally stabs Luca. She sets the farmhouse on fire to destroy the evidence, intending to frame the scene as a murder-suicide perpetrated by Lydia. Merritt flees with her children, planning to present herself as a traumatized survivor and collect a secret life insurance policy she had taken out on Luca.

Lydia regains consciousness in the burning house but is overcome by smoke. Delphine, who tracked Lydia’s location after seeing a rideshare notification on her phone, arrives just in time to pull her from the fire as emergency services approach. Two weeks later, Lydia is recovering. Merritt is in custody, her fabricated story unraveling after police find her wearing a unique necklace she had stolen from Lydia during the attack. With Luca dead and Merritt incarcerated, the children are placed in state care. Lydia awaits the official confirmation of her identity and access to the state’s reward fund, reflecting that she saved the children from being raised by murderers.