Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

It's July of 1976 and a massive heatwave has England in its clutches. Gretta Riordan is baking bread when her husband says he's going out for a newspaper--and doesn't come back. She later discovers that his passport and money from their bank account are both gone. What is going on? Gretta calls her grown children home to help her figure out what happened to their father. Their stories--rather than the missing Robert's--are at the crux of this compelling tale by Maggie O'Farrell. Eventually we find out what happened to the missing Robert. But we're more caught up in what's going on in the lives of Michael Francis (whose wife seems tired of their marriage), Monica (who's now married to a man with 2 daughters who don't like her and a nearby ex), and Aoife (the family black sheep, who has fled to New York).