There are two main characters in this novel. Edith is Cambridge post graduate, and she is missing in suspicious circumstances. We don’t meet her in the story, but learn a lot about her. We are led to believe she is perfectly innocent, ‘resourceful, clever and talented”, but then her character is in doubt, there is an element of selfishness, and sexuality
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Was she killed, or did she disappear, and if so why? DS Manon Bradshaw is investigating the case. The police work is almost eclipsed by her love life though, as she tries to meet someone by on line dating. She is unsuccessful, but finally meets an unexpected person in an unexpected way – someone to share her life with.
The book is well written, with descriptive observations. Edith’s parents described as “silvery in their ageing, as if covered by a hoar frost”. The tired detectives leave the office – “coats threaded onto leaden arms, bags gathered, families phoned”. “The night air drips with moisture, dank and lonely”
There are also some thoughts about life. Manon is alone, and should feel a sense of freedom with no one to answer to, but concludes that there is such a thing of a surfeit of freedom, a sort of weightless free fall through nothing. The assumption that Christmas and holidays should be enjoyable and the guilt felt when the enjoyment is slightly out of reach. Edith has had a lot of expectations heaped on her shoulders by her parents, perhaps she needs to escape and find herself?
Several threads in the book appear to be separate, but finally come together to solve the mystery. There are personal disasters, but no-one intended harm – things happened in a chain of events that started quite innocently. The road not taken, or rather taken and the route muddled through.
I liked the humour in the book, which stopped it getting too heavy. Humour, people and crime woven together in a very compulsive read.