HarperCollins ­Canada, 306 pp, $32.95, hardcover.

There are not one but two horrors embedded in Barbara Gowdy's latest novel. Most apparent is the abduction of nine-year-old Rachel Fox. Gowdy, always meticulous, always spare and unflinching, lays out the kidnapping convincingly. As the father of a six-year-old girl, I barely made it to the end of the book—there were chapters I had to creep through 10 minutes at a time.

Is it a triumph of craft, of imagination, that Gowdy presents the snatcher, Ron, as a flawed, sometimes rational man? That his girlfriend, the deluded accessory to his crime, is an object of pity? At one point, Rachel's mother prepares to make a television plea. A friend advises her: “I don't think begging will work. I think you have to put yourself in this person's shoes.” “How the fuck do I do that?” she replies. Gowdy spends the next few hundred pages showing exactly how a woman can put herself in the shoes of an overweight Toronto appliance repairman harbouring a monstrous secret in the basement.

More existential is the second horror, which rolls through the whole novel. It's about accommodation and permission. Ron makes himself deals: “The promise he has made to himself is that any physical contact will be instigated by her. He won't invite her to climb onto his lap, but if she wants to, if she wants to kiss him good night, he isn't going to deny her the expression of her natural feelings.” He offloads responsibility constantly. Everybody does. Rachel's mother tries to attune herself to portents. Ron's girlfriend looks to the weather for signs. Everyone wants permission; everyone seeks a meaning, an excuse. Ron keeps blacking out briefly—“He opens the door and steps onto the landing. Before he knows it, he's at the bottom of the stairs”—as though his actions exist independent of his will.

Why does he do it? As a child, Ron slept with his eight-year-old stepsister. His girlfriend? She was abused when she was young. Does that excuse anything? The reader also seeks any sign at all that there is a reason.

To win tickets to meet Barbara Gowdy on March 11, visit The CBC Radio Studio One Book Club.