Review: The Missing - CL Taylor

Available HERE at Amazon.co.uk

You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them.

But should you…?

When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.

Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.

A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?

Sometimes those closest to us are the ones with the most to hide…

Fifteen year old Billy has been missing for six months when the book begins, the family have and are doing all they can to find him but things really are not looking great from the off. A live press appeal goes very wrong when elder brother, Jake, turns up worse for wear shining a very dim view on the family and stirring up more media rumours that always circulate when there is a missing child - it must be the family.

Which leads you to think...is it the family? Or at least someone connected? There are plenty of clues (which had me guessing at least three wrong suspects) as Claire's journey to finding the truth about how her son disappeared leads her into some very grim places, both mentally and physically. But throughout she remains firm in the fact that Billy is not dead, but is a mother's instinct always right or is she just too frightened to admit the truth?

The narration is interspersed with diary entries of a messaging site between seemingly Billy and an older person giving clues to why he disappeared - these were not a part of the story I particularly enjoyed as they were quite seedy and did not make pleasant reading - maybe crucial to the story, I'm not sure?

All in all this is not my favourite of Taylor's books (The Accident and The Lie were excellent and well worth checking out) but it is still worth a read if psychological thrillers/family dramas are your thing. 

Many thanks to the publisher for exchanging a copy for an honest review.