Thanks so much for the book which I received late last week.
It's a bit of a strange one, this.
From the oddly-named, cynical, nymphomaniac, resentful, desperate and frankly not very likeable female detective Manon, (should have been called Manita) to the highly implausible, very neatly tied up ending, it all didn't quite come together for me.
Couldn't warm to the egocentric Manon, and I felt she was being portrayed as quirky to the point of irritation.
I much preferred the more sensitive and humane Davy.
Edith with her tumbling hair, fragrant beauty and gentrified family was too Jilly Cooperesque I thought.
Although the book started well, and was fine for most of the first half, it then rushed headlong into implausible subplots, needlessly titillating encounters between assorted characters, and seemed to have lost its way somewhat throughout the second half.
It was too long by far, and the ending was predictable and just far too cosy for my liking.
The book was OK and I did find some of the observations about relationships and the humdrum, tedious relentlessness of life both wry and insightful.
But overall I thought "Missing, presumed" was too long, and suffered from an insufficiently satisfying ending wrapped up in a thin veneer of cosines, which did not correlate with the undercurrent of seediness running throughout its many pages.