Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner
The Blurb On The Back:
Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date - the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.
Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman - door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge post-graduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.
Is Edith alive or dead? Was her “complex love life” at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press?
And when a body is found, it is the end or only the beginning?
It’s December 2010. DS Manon Bradshaw is 39 years old, single and goes on internet dates with unsuitable men who she sleeps with and then never sees again. Estranged from her sister, Ellie, the only constant in her life is her work with the Major Incident Team and she keeps an illicit police radio in her bedroom so she can listen to the call-outs as she drifts to sleep.
One night, she hears a call out for a missing persons case and decides to head out. Edith Hind is an English PhD student at Cambridge University, the daughter of eminent surgeon Sir Ian Hind (a good friend of the Home Secretary) and his GP wife, Lady Miriam. Manon knows that she’s got 72 hours to find her alive but despite a number of leads and suspects and the intense media scrutiny, the trail quickly goes cold. With resources stretched, Manon and DC Davy Walker are assigned to investigate when the body of a teenage boy is found in a river and it isn’t long before they discover a tenuous link with Edith’s disappearance …
I picked this up because Susie Steiner’s crime novel (the first in a series) was one of the big hits of the 2016 summer but although I enjoyed the viewpoints of the three main narrators, the plot is incredibly contrived and didn’t make a whole lot of sense towards the end (especially one of the developing relationships which I would have expected to be prohibited due to the conflict of interest). The story is mainly told from the point of view of the emotionally vulnerable Manon, socially conscious Davy, and Edith’s mother Miriam who’s struggling to understand her relationship with her daughter as it provides emotional insight on the search and its impact but the way Steiner connects the murder and disappearance didn’t work for me as it relies heavily on contrivances that pop out from nowhere and I really didn’t believe the involvement that Manon takes in the life of the victim’s brother. In fact, Manon herself is pretty cliché with her difficult love life, inability to look after herself and need for a baby and that made it difficult for me to empathise with her - especially the pathetic neediness she displays during one relationship. Ultimately, I kept turning the pages but I’m not going to rush to read the next book.
The Verdict:
I picked this up because Susie Steiner’s crime novel (the first in a series) was one of the big hits of the 2016 summer but although I enjoyed the viewpoints of the three main narrators, the plot is incredibly contrived and didn’t make a whole lot of sense towards the end (especially one of the developing relationships which I would have expected to be prohibited due to the conflict of interest). The story is mainly told from the point of view of the emotionally vulnerable Manon, socially conscious Davy, and Edith’s mother Miriam who’s struggling to understand her relationship with her daughter as it provides emotional insight on the search and its impact but the way Steiner connects the murder and disappearance didn’t work for me as it relies heavily on contrivances that pop out from nowhere and I really didn’t believe the involvement that Manon takes in the life of the victim’s brother. In fact, Manon herself is pretty cliché with her difficult love life, inability to look after herself and need for a baby and that made it difficult for me to empathise with her - especially the pathetic neediness she displays during one relationship. Ultimately, I kept turning the pages but I’m not going to rush to read the next book.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date - the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.
Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman - door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge post-graduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.
Is Edith alive or dead? Was her “complex love life” at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press?
And when a body is found, it is the end or only the beginning?
It’s December 2010. DS Manon Bradshaw is 39 years old, single and goes on internet dates with unsuitable men who she sleeps with and then never sees again. Estranged from her sister, Ellie, the only constant in her life is her work with the Major Incident Team and she keeps an illicit police radio in her bedroom so she can listen to the call-outs as she drifts to sleep.
One night, she hears a call out for a missing persons case and decides to head out. Edith Hind is an English PhD student at Cambridge University, the daughter of eminent surgeon Sir Ian Hind (a good friend of the Home Secretary) and his GP wife, Lady Miriam. Manon knows that she’s got 72 hours to find her alive but despite a number of leads and suspects and the intense media scrutiny, the trail quickly goes cold. With resources stretched, Manon and DC Davy Walker are assigned to investigate when the body of a teenage boy is found in a river and it isn’t long before they discover a tenuous link with Edith’s disappearance …
I picked this up because Susie Steiner’s crime novel (the first in a series) was one of the big hits of the 2016 summer but although I enjoyed the viewpoints of the three main narrators, the plot is incredibly contrived and didn’t make a whole lot of sense towards the end (especially one of the developing relationships which I would have expected to be prohibited due to the conflict of interest). The story is mainly told from the point of view of the emotionally vulnerable Manon, socially conscious Davy, and Edith’s mother Miriam who’s struggling to understand her relationship with her daughter as it provides emotional insight on the search and its impact but the way Steiner connects the murder and disappearance didn’t work for me as it relies heavily on contrivances that pop out from nowhere and I really didn’t believe the involvement that Manon takes in the life of the victim’s brother. In fact, Manon herself is pretty cliché with her difficult love life, inability to look after herself and need for a baby and that made it difficult for me to empathise with her - especially the pathetic neediness she displays during one relationship. Ultimately, I kept turning the pages but I’m not going to rush to read the next book.
The Verdict:
I picked this up because Susie Steiner’s crime novel (the first in a series) was one of the big hits of the 2016 summer but although I enjoyed the viewpoints of the three main narrators, the plot is incredibly contrived and didn’t make a whole lot of sense towards the end (especially one of the developing relationships which I would have expected to be prohibited due to the conflict of interest). The story is mainly told from the point of view of the emotionally vulnerable Manon, socially conscious Davy, and Edith’s mother Miriam who’s struggling to understand her relationship with her daughter as it provides emotional insight on the search and its impact but the way Steiner connects the murder and disappearance didn’t work for me as it relies heavily on contrivances that pop out from nowhere and I really didn’t believe the involvement that Manon takes in the life of the victim’s brother. In fact, Manon herself is pretty cliché with her difficult love life, inability to look after herself and need for a baby and that made it difficult for me to empathise with her - especially the pathetic neediness she displays during one relationship. Ultimately, I kept turning the pages but I’m not going to rush to read the next book.
Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.