Name: Missing, Presumed
ISBN: 9780008123284

Susie Steiner

'It hits the sweet spot between literary and crime fiction - Gripping' ERIN KELLY 'Within a chapter, DS Manon Bradshaw announces herself as a detective to follow through books and books to come. A treat in store for those who love their crime fiction rich in psychology, beautifully written and laced with dark humour. Dive in' LUCIE WHITEHOUSE

Missing, Presumed

Ley Stanton

I had to DNF this book which hurts my soul. I might return to it at a later date, when I'm more open to a gritty police-perspective thriller. But this is just not the book for me. The synopsis led me to believe it was something it was not.
But I would recommend this book to someone who wants to see the finer side of a police investigation into a missing persons case. It was actually quite interesting. But I just couldn't connect with the characters or the story. This might have been the right book for me but I just picked it up at the wrong time.

Lauren Attaway

How excellent- a mystery where the people not the plot are the stars. I really enjoyed this one.

Well-drawn characters, a mystery that doesn't feel over-explained, and a smart bit of world-building.

Tanya Sutton

I'm always excited at the prospect of a character-driven police procedural (especially if it's British) and Missing, Presumed did not disappoint. The plot centers around a young woman who has gone missing after a night of carousing at her local university pub. Not an out-of-the-ordinary case, except that the missing woman is Edith Hind, only daughter of Sir Ian Hind, physician to the royal family. There were signs of a struggle at her home – broken glasses, blood, and tipped over furniture – but no ransom demands and no contact from Edith herself. The story itself plays fairly close to the traditional missing person mystery with lots of suspects, false leads, and juicy family secrets, but what really made it stand out were the wonderful characters.

The book is told from multiple perspectives, allowing the reader to get to know each character intimately. You hear all of their thoughts about the case, their boss, their significant others (including some particularly painful blind dates), and each other. Manon, the main character, is portrayed as both a tough and capable detective. At the same time, however, we get to see peeks at her private life, like her disastrous attempts at online dating. Davy, her partner, is an eternally optimistic man who worries about the plight of at-risk youth in the system and hides the miserable relationship he's in with his long-time girlfriend. Even more minor characters are fully fleshed out and you get a good sense of what the squad room is like.

Despite being a rather traditional mystery, this book touched on some social issues like at-risk youth and how they're shuttled through the system, the self-absorption and "cause hopping" of the idle rich, and the reasons some people turn to crime as a way of life. One thing I found particularly interesting was the reflection on how high profile cases are handled differently and whether that has an effect on the outcome of the case. 

I enjoyed this book tremendously and I'm hopeful that this is the first book in a coming series. 

(Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a free copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review.)

Pratik M

Alex Cessford

Kate Lillie

Lisa Lindquist 

Alison Fincher

Neta Steingart

Rosie Yakob 

Roberta

Polly Boardman

Julie Gibson

Jane McCullough

"Detective Manon Bradshaw is 39, single, and miserable as sin. She has endured some of the worst dates in internet history. But she loves her job and performs it brilliantly; all she needs to rise up in the ranks is a big break. Edith Hind is a gorgeous, intrepid graduate student at Cambridge University who seems to have it all: a doting boyfriend, a devoted friend named Helena, a loving mother and a father who is a surgeon to the Royal Family. When Edith turns up missing from her apartment one evening, leaving only a single streak of blood along the front foyer wall, the case becomes a national media sensation. In the first frenzied 72 hours of being assigned to the case, Bradshaw will make a number of alarming discoveries: Edith's behavior had been erratic in the run-up to her disappearance, and her close friend Helena, the last person to see her, is clearly hiding something. A known sex offender appears in CCTV footage of Edith taken a short while before she goes missing. Then a body is discovered floating in a nearby river. Is Edith Hind alive or dead? Was her "complex love life" at the heart of her disappearance, as the tabloids are suggesting? Why is there reluctance, in the senior ranks, to press too hard on some elements of the story? Detective Bradshaw must use all her skill and resources to bring closure to the case for Edith's family, as she finds herself becoming ever more personally, and dangerously, invested"--

Missing, Presumed

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