{"id":6960,"date":"2026-03-10T05:22:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6960"},"modified":"2026-03-10T09:45:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:45:40","slug":"e-a-jackson-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/e-a-jackson-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"E.A. Jackson: Missing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debut<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This was an unexpectedly wonderful read.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Then, a few days into the search, a young woman walks into the police station with the missing baby.\u00a0 The parents are thrilled, and the higher ups are certain the case is closed.\u00a0 Somehow, though, Allen can\u2019t let it go. She feels something is off, but she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The character of Allen as much as the plot drives the story.\u00a0 Allen is a hard worker who has been obsessed with having her own child with no success.\u00a0 To a degree, it colors her view of the case.\u00a0 The book is also quite matter of fact about the sexism Allen encounters as she rises through the ranks.\u00a0 Her intelligence and professionalism cements her solid rise in job status but she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

However, when the dead woman turns up, she turns to an old colleague for help.\u00a0 The body has been discovered on his patch and with his help she begins to again take apart the puzzle of baby Bella.\u00a0 The police work is meticulous and well thought out but never dull.\u00a0 It\u2019s a believable mix of routine and lucky discoveries.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I always love a book that gets to the middle and I have no idea where it\u2019s going next.\u00a0 Like Allen\u2019s 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.\u00a0 The solution was not what I\u2019d expected either, and it even upends some of Allen\u2019s assumptions about the way things went back in 1990, and how they\u2019re going in 2020.\u00a0 Like all the best twists in a novel, the ending is both a surprise and a well set up solution by this intelligent author.\u00a0 I could not stop reading.\u00a0 —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debut This was an unexpectedly wonderful read.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 When the police arrive, the parents are utterly distraught (the mother has actually been sedated), and they go all out to find 5 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[884,2444,2443,1484,254,2442,8,1276,670],"class_list":["post-6960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-atria-books","tag-dual-timeline","tag-e-a-jackson","tag-emily-bestler-books","tag-london","tag-missing","tag-police","tag-robin-agnew","tag-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6960"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6964,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960\/revisions\/6964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}