Debut
This was an unexpectedly wonderful read. Set in London, the book follows Detective Inspector Martha Allen, who catches the 1990 case of a missing baby in a somewhat sketchy London hotel. When the police arrive, the parents are utterly distraught (the mother has actually been sedated), and they go all out to find 5 month old Bella, who was snatched through an open window in the middle of the night, without waking the parents. This seems unlikely to DI Allen, but she and her team find clues, though most are frustrating dead ends.
Then, a few days into the search, a young woman walks into the police station with the missing baby. The parents are thrilled, and the higher ups are certain the case is closed. Somehow, though, Allen can’t let it go. She feels something is off about the dad but she’s warned to back off and she mostly does until 30 years later, when the young woman who brought the baby to the station is discovered dead on a park bench in a seedy section of London.
The character of Allen as much as the plot drives the story. Allen is a hard worker who has been herself obsessed with having her own child with no success. To a degree, it colors her view of the case. The book is also quite matter of fact about the sexism Allen encounters as she rises through the ranks. Her intelligence and professionalism cements her solid rise in job status but she’s never one of the guys, and to that degree, the skepticism the other cops feel toward her reactions hinders any progress she might have made on the baby Bella case.
However, when the dead woman turns up, she turns to an old colleague for help. The body has been discovered on his patch and with his help she begins to again take apart the puzzle of baby Bella. The police work is meticulous and well thought out but never dull. It’s a believable mix of routine and lucky discoveries. Allen works well with her old colleague who is one of the few men to take her more seriously, perhaps because she extended the same courtesy to him back when he was a fresh Detective Constable on the baby Bella case.
I always love a book that gets to the middle and I have no idea where it’s going next. Like Allen’s colleagues, I thought the case was settled, but as she continues to work it, more and more clues and facts emerge that paint a different picture. The solution was not what I’d expected either, and it even upends some of Allen’s assumptions about the way things went back in 1990, and how they’re going in 2020. Like all the best twists in a novel, the ending is both a surprise and a well set up solution by this intelligent author. I could not stop reading. — Robin Agnew