Blog Tour ~ The Missing by C. L. Taylor

Jaffareadstoo is delighted to host the penultimate day on The Missing Blog Tour

 

You love your family.

They make you feel safe

You trust them.

But should you ...?

The Missing focuses on the disappearance, six months ago, of fifteen year old Billy Wilkinson from the family home and interspersed as it is, with the clever references to the type of social media that youngsters seem addicted to these days, there is a definite sinister edge to the story from the very beginning. A missing child is every parent's worst nightmare and for Claire Wilkinson, Billy's mother, the need to find out what has happened to her child is palpable. 

However, the Wilkinson’s are a strange bunch and there are so many secrets and lies between this family that it’s difficult to really get to know just what’s going on with any of them. I enjoyed getting to know them, particularly Claire, who whilst not always very likeable, did succeed in getting her personality across quite forcibly and I was especially fascinated by Claire’s spiral into dissociative amnesia, which added a distinctly different element to the story.

The author writes well, she has a fine eye for detail and is able to infuse her characters with the faults and foibles which I’m sure can be found in many families, but it is the smallest of detail where the story really starts to come alive, and where family dynamics broken and shattered hide a terrifying truth. The plot is cleverly managed, and interspersed as it is with a dialogue between two characters known only as Jackdaw44 and ICE9, manages to be both current and scarily realistic.

It's always such a treat when you discover a book by an author whose work you haven't read before, only to finish the book and then immediately want to tootle off to discover what else she has written. Such is the case with The Missing which I thought was a very cleverly constructed psychological family/ crime thriller, and that once finished, immediately sent me on a search to discover this talented author's previous two books, The Lie and The Accident.

Best Read with….Milky coffee, one sugar and a packet of Maltesers…

About the Author

CL Taylor's first psychological thriller THE ACCIDENT was one of the top ten bestselling debut novels of 2014 according to The Bookseller. Her second novel, THE LIE, charted at number 5 in the Sunday Times Bestsellers list. Combined sales of both novels have now exceeded half a million copies in the UK alone.

Visit the author's Website
Find her on Facebook
Follow her Twitter @callytaylor

Amazon UK

Avon
Harper Collins
2016

My thanks to the author and to Helena at Avon Harper Collins for my invitation to be part of this exciting blog tour.

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