Missing, Presumed

MISSING, PRESUMED by Susie Steiner

Missing, Presumed is an interesting mix of police procedural and psychological thriller. The story is told from several points of view, ranging from the missing girl to several police officers – Including the main character: a Cambridgeshire Police Detective Sergeant with the unusual name Manon Bradshaw – and the missing girl’s family.

The quote from T.S Elliot’s poem “Little Gidding” in the epigraph is a good indicator of the high register of language used throughout the book, which gives it a very literary feel more commonly found in mainstream fiction rather than a crime novel. Although there is plenty of lovely, intricate writing – and some wonderfully original metaphors and comparisons at work here – I sometimes feel that this loquacity can slow down a crime novel, even one with a complex and interesting plot (which this one has), but it really depends on what you’re looking for: if you want a very well-written literary crime novel that takes its time and detours down some very lovely scenery, then they don’t come much better than this.

There are also some great flashes of dark humour from the police characters, particularly the damaged, cynical but endearingly vulnerable Manon (you really want to give her a hug at times!) and it’s one of the darkly wittiest crime novels I’ve read in a long time.

There’s also a couple of convincing subplots that revolve around the difficulties of relationships between men and women, particularly if you’re a single woman approaching forty and feel that you may be destined to be lonely and unhappy for the rest of your days.

Overall, this was a very well written literary thriller with an engaging and likable heroine from a writer with a very distinctive voice capable of tackling dark subjects and injecting them with witty black humour. Though it seemed to lose focus a little at times – because of, perhaps, too many subplots – this could be because the writer is laying the groundwork for a series and the plot was pleasingly twisty and the end satisfying.

3/5