Just Another Missing Person: The gripping new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author

I enjoy Gillian McAllister's books very much and despite some initial reservations about this I soon found it very good and rather gripping. But it’s a complicated story, which is difficult to describe without giving away vital clues. Sufficient to say this book it is full of surprises. Nothing is as it seems, neither the crime nor the perpetrator.

At its heart is a question: What do I value the most when disaster strikes, my own integrity or my child’s? This is the dilemma of a high-ranking police woman, Julia, a basically decent, hardworking and conscientious officer, who finds herself forced into corruption and wrongdoing.

One year earlier, a young woman disappeared and Julia’s team has the case although she doesn’t give it her full attention because of her problems at home. So far, the missing girl, Sadie, hasn’t been found and now another woman has gone missing. Again, Julia and her team have the case, and this is where things go really wrong because Julia is approached by a masked man who makes it clear that she must plant evidence to implicate Sadie’s boyfriend. Julia does what she is told, but from this point the narrative becomes distinctly odd; things don’t really fit. No trace can be found of the latest missing woman and it’s as if she never existed. Gradually, Julia starts to put things together. She’s an excellent investigator and in spite of threats she keeps digging.

Most of the chapters in this book are told by Julia, but every so often we hear other voices, such as the father of Sadie, or the mother of the boyfriend, and these chapters give us a different perspective on what’s happening.

Once I’d got over my initial reservations, I really liked this story. It’s extremely well written. The tension builds slowly, and when the surprises come, they knock you sideways. In spite of her behaviour, Julia is well-realised as a decent person, as is her sergeant and best friend. The anguish of Sadie’s father is heartbreakingly well described. Here is a man who will not give up hope and who hounds the police to keep looking.

The whole book is written in the present tense, something that I used to dislike but which seems to be a trend in thrillers, and I have to say it adds tension. The descriptive prose is a bit scanty. The book is set in Portishead, a place I have never been, and I didn’t get much of a feel it from reading this. But maybe that’s the point. The events could happen anywhere so ‘anywhere’ is where it could be set. I don’t think this is on a par with some of Gillian McAllister’s earlier books but I did enjoy it.
Review by: Freyja, Oundle Crime