Imagine a teenage girl woke up one day and lost her parents and an only brother. That was the plot of this story.
Years later, she was married with an eight-year-old daughter. Her mum and brother were found at the bottom of a quarry lake in the former's car.
In the best tradition of a thriller, a few more people died before the mystery was unravelled. An interview with the author revealed that this novel started as an idea taken from a news article of one person who disappeared, leaving behind three other family members.
In Peninsular Malaysia, it was rather common to hear of voluntary disappearance of gamblers who incurred in astronomical debts with loan sharks who were ready to torture or shoot them. I have heard of one case where the debtor was sighted in a border town in Thailand. I suppose the remaining family members might migrate to another nation or at least relocate to a town far away leaving no forwarding address.
Sadly, my own cousin decided to stay put in the same house after her husband hanged himself to escape from astronomical debts. She is a Ph.D. candidate and a high level government servant in a small town in the East Coast. It is fortunate that the deceased left behind much money in the Employee Provident Fund (pension fund) and a good sum of life insurance pay-out. Even then, it would probably take a thick skin and stiff upper lip to face down the tittle-tattle of a small town.
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