WRITTEN by the winner of the Edgar Award and the Steel Dagger Award, this thriller has a child hero by the name of Johnny who is about 13-years old. He has a father but one day his twin sister Alyssa gets kidnapped, the father leaves the house, after a fight with his wife, never to return. His mother starts living with a rich guy named Ken who loves to give a hiding to poor Johnny on some pretext or other. His mother, a fragile woman has spiralled into deep despair and remains drugged all the time as she is unable to forgive her husband for having forgotten to bring back Alyssa from school. Detective Clyde Hunter has tried to locate the girl but has not succeeded. His sympathies lie with the boy and his mother but he is unable to do anything except to offer help when needed.
The police might have given up on the girl but Johnny never will on Alyssa. He is dogged in his aim to find his sister and one day he goes scouting on his bicycle armed with a map and a flashlight, hoping to find some trace of his sister. He sees the shadow of a man talking about having kidnapped a girl. Only one person keeps a keen eye on Johnny and that is Detective Hunt who shares the obsession with the case. Detective Hunt and his team go searching on the bridge and discover the corpse of a David Wilson, organ donor and a rock climber who has callus on his hands that give away his job as a rock climber. A year later, another girl named Tiffany Shores from Alyssa’s school and of same age gets kidnapped. Suddenly it strikes Detective Hunt that maybe Tiffany and Alyssa were friends and both knew the wrong guy who could have kidnapped them.
One day Johnny witnesses a hit-and-run case and insists the victim had been killed because he had found Alyssa. Hunt thinks Johnny has gone round the bend. Then comes the discovery of a pedophile and now the story takes a thrilling turn.
This is a terrifying yet emotionally heart-rending story, laying bare the extent of human emotions and is worth reading and enjoying. I think there is no point in revealing the entire story in the review as the reader will lose interest.
(Hachette, 338 Euston Road, London, NW1 3BH; www.johnmurray.co.uk)
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