Gone
Mo Hayder
The fifth in the Jack Caffrey series.
Night is falling as murder detective Jack Caffrey arrives to interview the distraught victim of a car-jacking. What he hears horrifies him. The car was taken by force, and on the back seat was a passenger. An eleven-year-old girl. Who is still missing.
Before long the jacker starts to communicate with the police. And Caffrey becomes certain that he is planning to take another car. And another child.
Who is the car-jacker? How is he choosing his targets? And - most urgent of all - can Caffrey find the child?
Before it’s too late …
This book had me on the edge of my seat as it raced towards its conclusion. There aren't many books that have done that to me recently.
I have read an earlier title in the series recently (RITUAL) and I remember being gobsmacked by BIRDMAN long before I began blogging. Now I'm going to go looking for the two that I have missed reading, THE TREATMENT and SKIN.
Detective Inspector Jack Caffery of Bristol's Major Crime Investigation Unit is an impressive very believable character. He has spent 18 years with the Murder Squad and his investigations are marked with thoroughness. Unfortunately those who work for him don't always think outside the square. There are two other interesting characters in the series: police diver Sergeant Flea Marley and a vagrant whom the locals call the Walking Man. Caffery and the Walking Man are connected because both have a close relative who disappeared when young.
The kidnapping of a child is always a traumatic subject and we see the cases in GONE both from the police point of view as they desperately search for clues, and from the parent's points of view as they try to come to terms with what has happened. There's a little touch of the paranormal in a couple of places, but who knows where inspiration and intuition comes from?
This was an excellent read, one of my best so far this year.
Review by Kerrie Smith, MYSTERIES IN PARADISE
About Mo Hayder:
Born in Essex, UK. Now lives in Bath.
Mo Hayder left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, film-maker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She has an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.