This review is written with thanks to Penguin for my copy of Just Another Missing Person via Netgalley.

Blurb:

OLIVIA.
22 years old.
Last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley.
And not coming back out again.
Missing for one day and counting . . .

Julia is the detective heading up the case. She knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her husband and daughter. But Julia has no idea how close to home it’s going to get.

Because there’s a man out there. And his weapon isn’t a gun, or a knife: it’s a secret. Her worst one.

He tells her that her family’s safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia – and must frame somebody else for her murder . . .

What would you do?

Review:

I’ve read most of Gillian McAllister’s novels now, but I’ve particularly enjoyed the more recent ones, which are more high concept and incredibly well plotted and written. I love the way that Gillian McAllister can get inside a character and show us their feelings and motivation so viscerally that it is impossible not to want to know their side of the story, however unpleasant it might seem.

The novel starts with a bang, and from the beginning right until the end, Just Another Missing Person is engaging to read and I often found myself thinking about it, wondering what I would do in a similar situation, even when I wasn’t reading. I thought at one point that I knew exactly where the story was going, but the author completely blindsided me and it goes in a completely different direction! It’s really intelligent and I loved being kept on my toes until the final page!

Just Another Missing Person has a number of narrators, including Julia, Lewis and Emma. In Lewis’ section, the words seem to be directed towards someone but they are not named in the beginning. It did take me a while to get my head around who was who, but I enjoyed seeing what was happening from different perspectives as I tried to piece everything together.

I’m already looking forward to the author’s next book!

Just Another Missing Person is available from Amazon.