"The Missing"

“The Missing”
Written by C.L. Taylor
Review written by Diana Iozzia



“The Missing” is a psychological thriller / mystery about a family that lives in Weston, England. The youngest son, Billy, had disappeared six months before the book begins, so we meet his parents, Claire and Mark, his brother, Jake, and his brother’s girlfriend, Kira. I was interested to read this book, because I am often interested in books that are labeled as psychological thrillers. I was slightly disappointed with this novel, but that wasn’t because it was a bad book. See, the issue I found with “The Missing” is that it fit into the mold of every other psychological thriller ever. We can use the example of a salad. You have all of the core ingredients, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, dressing, maybe croutons. You can add other ingredients, make it a little more exciting, but it still is a salad. Sometimes, you have a salad that is world-ending, ground-breaking, unlike any salad you’ve ever had before. “The Missing” is a chef salad.

Now, to sound less like I’m having a stroke, I mean to say that this book has all of the core plot devices, dialogue techniques, and characters that are necessary in a psychological thriller. It doesn’t really have any SHOCKING, CRAZY, INVENTIVE ideas that set it apart from any other books like this. This book is very reminiscent of the first and second seasons of the English television program, “Broadchurch”, but without the focus on the police force. But it’s so similar, so that’s a problem. I like my thriller novels to have exciting new twists and interesting plot devices hardly ever used before.

“The Missing” has most chapters ending in a cliffhanger like, “And then from behind the bedroom door, I heard a scream.” No one’s dying. It’s just dumb teenagers drinking. There’s predictable language, “I can’t believe our son could be like this,” “the side of the bed feels cold without you”. Of course, the main character has blackouts and can’t remember where she is or what she was doing! “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” but the hotel desk attendant gives personal information on the computer. I’ve never seen that in a book before, no… There’s an affair! TWO! WOW. How innovative. Child pornography always seems to pop up in psychological thrillers too. Can’t we have an original villain anymore?

Also, the mother, Claire, is an unreliable narrator. I understand how that can be unappealing, I often like unreliable narrators, but she isn’t all that unreliable. Sure, she can’t remember a few things every now and then, but she’s a pretty normal scared mom. I think my least favorite part of the narrative is the instant message conversations between ___ and ____. (Spoilers not included, obviously). They’re unnecessary and don’t give enough of the plot away or progress the plot. Everything is told to Claire as it unfolds, rather than her actually finding it out on her own.

Let’s (finally) talk about the positives about “The Missing”. Although this is a very unoriginal book with very unoriginal elements, it was pretty good. I enjoyed the character, Claire. She wasn’t as annoying as I thought she could be, even though she’s “unreliable”. I did feel for her. I didn’t like Mark, but most dads in thriller novels are either the villain or the antagonist, so was I even supposed to like him? Kira is easily the most interesting character and rightfully so. The twist and reveal are interesting, well done enough to justify the simplistic plot elements. This was a slightly watered-down novel, and I think it had a bit more potential if it didn’t focus on Mark’s rivalry with his stepbrother, and Claire’s wine drinking with her neighbor. I think this would be a pretty good BBC or ITV mini-series…I enjoyed this novel nonetheless. It read out like a television show, and I could vividly picture the characters and events play out in my mind. As I mentioned, I enjoyed the plot twists and reveals in the end, and they were unpredictable. They really made the book worthwhile.


I received a complementary review copy from William Morrow Publishing.