Kimberly Lee’s Have You Seen Him opens with a brutal bank scene and spirals into a decades-later mystery that tangles grief, identity, and moral reckoning into a slow-burn thriller. The story follows David Byrdsong, a weary public defender who discovers a missing-person ad bearing his childhood face and a stranger’s name. That bizarre discovery unravels a buried past, a vanished family, secrets hidden by his adoptive father, and a network of people who’ve been searching for him for decades. Lee layers the suspense with emotional depth, flipping between timelines and perspectives to show how loss ripples across generations.

I was hooked from the first chapter. Lee writes with an intensity that sneaks up on you. Her sentences are clean but punch hard, and her dialogue feels lived-in, not polished. The tension never drops, but it’s not all fear and chase scenes. It’s the quiet unraveling of a man realizing his life might have been built on a lie. Some sections hit me right in the chest, especially the flashbacks to David’s childhood. There’s a sadness there, a kind of ache that sticks. I found myself pausing just to think after some of the reveals. The pacing dips here and there, but that slower rhythm gave me time to absorb the emotion under the mystery.

What I admired most was how human the story felt, even when it got dark. Lee doesn’t rely on shock for impact. She writes about fear the way it really works—slow, creeping, sometimes disguised as routine. The villains aren’t cartoonish, and even the side characters have small flickers of truth. David’s hesitation, his guilt, his strange calm in chaos made me want to shake him. But maybe that’s the point. He’s not an action hero. He’s someone who’s survived by pretending he’s fine, and that resonated with me.

Have You Seen Him is about finding yourself after everyone else thought you were lost. I’d recommend it to readers who love stories that balance plot with heart, especially fans of psychological thrillers like Gone Girl or Everything I Never Told You. If you like your thrillers with a pulse and a conscience, this one’s worth every page.

Pages: 270 | ASIN : B0F9TJYN8V