This story will remind everyone of the case of the snatched child Madeleine McCann though it is set in the USA and Mexico rather than the UK and Portugal. The association is probably deliberate and the themes of suspicion, blame and intrusive reporting which have continued for years are all here in Joy Fielding's novel of life continuing after the inexplicable disappearance of a young child. As we see through the eyes of the grieving mother, it is quite heart-breaking at times.
The timeline is fractured so we move through different phases of the story over a period of fifteen years, jumping back and forth to fill in the gaps. We meet all the members of the family and all the friends who were on the fateful holiday together. It is a beautifully crafted plot.
My only criticism might be that I would have liked the middle section to be longer. A better balance would put a little more meat in the sandwich, after the exposition and before the final careful tidying up of every loose end. But a longer novel wouldn't fit so neatly into the convenient 'read over a weekend' category. To combine a couple of cliches, it's an unputdownable page-turner!
The timeline is fractured so we move through different phases of the story over a period of fifteen years, jumping back and forth to fill in the gaps. We meet all the members of the family and all the friends who were on the fateful holiday together. It is a beautifully crafted plot.
My only criticism might be that I would have liked the middle section to be longer. A better balance would put a little more meat in the sandwich, after the exposition and before the final careful tidying up of every loose end. But a longer novel wouldn't fit so neatly into the convenient 'read over a weekend' category. To combine a couple of cliches, it's an unputdownable page-turner!