Library's review
I finished this off in one day. It's a compulsive page turner, with lots of action and little introspection. Maybe a little too little, as I was left feeling unsatisfied by the eventual explanation of what happened to Lauren and unconvinced that anyone would react the way Mark did. It's also increasingly violent and gory as the story progresses, which generally doesn't bother me but i didn't like the way the child was involved in it. Even with the perfunctory lip service paid to fretting about how traumatic it was for him, it felt unpleasantly voyeuristic and gratuitous.
To sum up: An action-packed thriller that needed more nuance and character development to be above average.
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'It's just to say that no one has come to pick Nathan up from school, and we were wondering if there was a problem of some kind?'As Mark Douglas photographs a pod of whales stranded in the waters off Edinburgh's Portobello Beach, he is called by his son's school: his wife, Lauren, hasn't turned up to collect their son. Calm at first, Mark collects Nathan and takes him home, but as the hours slowly crawl by he increasingly starts to worry.With brilliantly controlled reveals, we learn some of the painful secrets of the couple's shared past, not least that it isn't the first time Lauren has disappeared. And as Mark struggles to care for his son and shield him from the truth of what's going on, the police seem dangerously short of leads. That is until a shocking discovery ...… (more)