Just Another Missing Person

Gillian McAllister

3.5/5

Synopsis

OLIVIA. 22 years old. Last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley. And not coming back out again. Missing for one day and counting . . .

Julia is the detective heading up the case.

She knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her children.

But Julia has no idea how close to home it’s going to get.

Because her family’s safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia – and must frame somebody else for her murder . . .

What would you do?

Genre

Mystery/thriller/crime fiction/suspense

Content Warning

Kidnapping, threats

I didn’t love this when I started, but I gave it a chance because I liked the premise. The moral conundrum that we learn about at the beginning was perhaps part of it; I’m not always a fan of morally grey storylines. As. I became more invested, I started to enjoy it more. However, the realization that one of the characters was an unreliable narrator threw me. That led to the understanding that events were not unfolding in the present day as they had in the rest of the story made it hard to get back into it.

What I Liked

Plot

The plot was what kept me reading. There were some slow moments, and some moral quandaries that I struggled with. But I needed to know what happened to Olivia, and if Julia’s secret would be revealed. The bad guy in the end was the last person I suspected, and I liked how all that played out, though it felt rushed. 

“Stop look for her,” the voice says. “And, when I release you, don’t look back.”

Characters

I’m on the fence with the characters but I did like Price, even though he’s a criminal (again with the morally grey areas). His devotion to Julia made me root for him, even if he wasn’t always on the right side of the law. 

“That’s the thing about Price: Julia may not be able to work out why he is loyal to some people and not others, but she knows that he is devoted to her.”

Lewis and Emma: I would never want to be in their positions. Looking for your child, or questioning a child’s innocence would be heart-wrenching. I thought they were well written, and I liked that we got their POV and not just from Julia’s perspective. 

“How can you be here, concrete, in my hands, in my wallet, but nowhere else?”

Theme

The theme of  what a parent would do for their child is laid out differently across the three points of view: Julia, Emma, and Lewis. While they all act in varying ways when met with the impossible, they all go to their own extreme. 

“And so now Julia sees him for who he is, who he really, truly is: a heartbroken parent, just like her.”

What I Didn’t Like

Pacing

I didn’t love the pacing or the timeline. I understand to a point that we were dealing with an unreliable narrator, but there were no hints to that, so I felt totally blindsided when I realized what was going on, and it took me some time to get back into the book. There were also lulls throughout it that made it tricky to keep reading without getting bored. At times, I had to go back and read, thinking I missed something, because it was all supposed to take place in one day, and there would be one paragraph where it said it was nine at night, then the next it was noon (earlier that day? I think?). 

Character POV

I am curious why Emma and Lewis were told in first person POV, and Julia, who is our main character, was in third person. I’m not sure if it’s something I didn’t like, but it stood out to me. 

Julia’s internal thought process was so repetitive, it irked me to read the same sentence every few paragraphs. 

Overall, I thought it had a great premise, but there were things that could have been fleshed out more, and other things pulled back on. The end was rather abrupt, and while I like how it wasn’t fully explained until the last page, I felt it could have been drawn out more, made it a little more intense and high stakes. You can read my review on “Famous Last Word” by Gillian McAllister as well if you’re interested!

If you have a book you’d like to recommend, please leave a comment below! Happy Reading!