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Overview
Ruth and Simon reluctantly agree to let their young teenage daughter, Heather, go off on a camping holiday in Cornwall with her best friend, Kelly, and her family. While on a vacation of their own, they get the news that both girls have gone missing. Kelly is found alive, but, after several days of searching, Heather's body is discovered inside some old mine workings. Although the police detective leading the investigation harbours suspicions of foul play, the verdict is that the death was accidental.The emotional strain of Heather's death ruins Ruth and Simon's marriage. After the divorce, Ruth moves from London to Cambridgeshire, where she remarries and has another child - a daughter, Beatrice. But when Beatrice is close to the age Heather was when she died, she too mysteriously disappears ...
Helen Walker (of Harvey's 2008 novel Gone to Ground), one of the officers involved in the investigation, travels to Cornwall to seek connections between Beatrice's disappearance and Heather's death. Will Grayson (also of Gone to Ground), the officer leading the enquiry, is torn between his fears that a recently paroled child-abuser might be responsible and his growing suspicions that someone closer to home might have taken Beatrice. With the stakes impossibly high and time running out, Helen and Will draw closer to their quarry while the truth seems to slip further into the distance.
Editorials
Marilyn Stasio
The architecture of Harvey's storytelling begs to be admired, with its multiple narratives, shifting time lines and elaborate plot details. But it's his handling of difficult characters and provocative themes that gives the book weight. All the adults in this story love children, some selflessly and others in ways that make your skin crawl, and they all react differently when the children they love are taken away from them. Harvey's touch is so subtle, his style so seductive, that he distracts us from the fact that Ruth isn't the only person whose choices are determined, or tragically derailed, by love for a child—even if it's someone else's child.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Det. Sgt. Helen Walker and Det. Insp. Will Grayson hunt for a missing girl in this worthy sequel to Gone to Ground from Cartier Diamond Dagger-winner Harvey. In 1995, pubescent Heather Pierce and her friend Kelly Efford disappear while on holiday in Cornwall. An eccentric Good Samaritan saves Kelly; searchers find Heather dead at the bottom of an old mining engine house, the apparent victim of a misstep in the fog. In present-day Cambridge, Heather's half-sister, Beatrice, who's about the same age as Heather was in 1995, vanishes. Is Heather's tragic history repeating itself, or is Beatrice the victim of something even darker? While Walker examines Heather's still unresolved death for a link to Beatrice's disappearance, Grayson becomes obsessed with a recently released pedophile, whom he suspects of committing terrible, undetected crimes. Harvey isn't afraid to let his characters grow in this thoughtful, complex thriller. (June)Library Journal
When Londoners Ruth and Simon Pierce's ten-year-old daughter Heather dies in an apparent fall while on a camping trip with a friend's family on the Cornish coast, they are devastated. Divorced, Ruth moves to Cambridge, remarries, and has another daughter, Beatrice, who at the age of ten disappears on the way home from a class. Meanwhile, a convicted pedophile is released in Cambridgeshire, and DI Will Grayson is convinced that he may have committed other crimes and even be threatening Will's own children. DS Helen Walker goes to Cornwall to investigate the death of Ruth's first daughter, while Will pulls out all stops in trying to find Beatrice. Harvey skillfully weaves these threads together to reach a wrenching conclusion that fully illustrates again his complete mastery of plot and character. Grayson and Walker first appeared in Gone to Ground, but Harvey's reputation was built on his Charlie Resnick series. VERDICT Any reader seeking an excellent author with a long track record of the very best of contemporary mystery fiction must become familiar with Harvey's considerable body of work. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 2/1/09.]—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., CarbondaleBook Details
Published
June 15, 2010
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages
512
ISBN
9780547487199