Tense throughout and filled with a sense of running out of time, this thriller grabs hold of you and runs. I haven't read the two earlier Cody books but found the story complete in itself, though with many fascinating allusions to the history of Cody and Webley and the impact of previous cases.
The story is claustrophobic in places, with a horrendous theme of abduction and captivity hidden behind a suburban facade. (This may remind you of Room, the best-seller of a few years back.)
We are invited to piece together and try to understand how this situation arose but it is, for me, a step too far. Not that the concepts are unbelievable but that I don't feel brave enough to let my imagination go there. There's a surreal nightmarish quality to a man whose fate rests upon a decision to pop down to the shops for tomato ketchup.
My only disappointment was that I didn't feel I really got inside the head of ten year old Daisy whose vocabulary and life experience didn't always ring true.
The story is claustrophobic in places, with a horrendous theme of abduction and captivity hidden behind a suburban facade. (This may remind you of Room, the best-seller of a few years back.)
We are invited to piece together and try to understand how this situation arose but it is, for me, a step too far. Not that the concepts are unbelievable but that I don't feel brave enough to let my imagination go there. There's a surreal nightmarish quality to a man whose fate rests upon a decision to pop down to the shops for tomato ketchup.
My only disappointment was that I didn't feel I really got inside the head of ten year old Daisy whose vocabulary and life experience didn't always ring true.