Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

Missing, Presumed was one of my first ever books from Book of the Month. However, like so many books I own, it got pushed aside as other books made their way onto my TBR list. But lately I have been working my way through my BOTM books that have been sitting there, and so I finally read it, and I am really glad I did.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Manon Bradshaw is a Detective Sergeant for Cambridgeshire PD. One night, she receives a call saying that a man has called in to say that his girlfriend is missing. When Manon arrives on the scene, the door is wide open, the coats have been knocked off their hooks, and there are a couple small pools of blood. The woman is Edith Hind, and no one seems to know what could have happened to her, but it is safe to say that she has many secrets that her friends and family had no clue about. When a young man, Taylor Dent, is found dead, only Manon thinks that he is connected in someway to the missing Edith Hind. It is up to Manon to figure out what really happened to Edith and Taylor, while trying to balance a dating life in her late-thirties, and now she has taken a maternal interest in Taylor's brother Fly, who is having a hard time dealing with the loss of his brother and his mothers illness.

When I first started the book, I was beginning to think it was a dud. I knew that I would finish it, but I did not feel pulled into it. I really did not care what happened to Edith. It definitely had a slow start. I am not sure when I switched into not being able to put it down, but suddenly, I needed to know everything.

(Source: Giphy)

A big subplot is Manon's dating life, which any single person can probably really relate to. She has given up on believing in just randomly meeting someone, and is positive that every person she meets on online dating is a loser. To be fair, she has a habit of picking some real losers. At the start of the novel, she is ice skating with a date (she hates ice skating) and cannot find anything worth talking about. When she turns him down for some pity sex, he responds with "I prefer my women petite." I cringed, and then I laughed. It left me reminded of the time a date said he wanted to put his seed in me, another story that at the time made me cringe and now makes me laugh and be grateful I am out of the dating scene. She briefly dates the man who finds Taylor Dent's body, and I definitely saw him being behind Taylor's death.

"Manon looks up, and there he is: his flappy boat, the stoop, horrifying and wonderful-Alan Prenderghast.

'Hello,' he says. 'I didn't expect to see you. I was just dropping this off.'

He holds out a small white paper bag, folded over at the top with a green chemist sign on it. Manon opens it and takes out an oblong box. The label reads: 'Chloramphenicol eyedrops, for the treatment of conjunctivitis.'

'Crikey,' she says.

'I feel a bit like a criminal caught in the act,' he says.

'Gosh-I haven't had time, as you can see.'

'Look,' he says, rather urgently, 'I don't know the form for this. Am I still a witness or something, in this case?'

'No, why?'

'I was wondering if I could take you out. For dinner or something. Or a film, where we sit in the same row. Adjacent seats, even.' (pp.182-183)

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The entire length of their relationship, I strongly questioned if he was dating her just to see if he was a suspect in the case, but no, he is just a prick.

Steiner does a good job of leaving cookie crumbs throughout the book that you do not exactly think about through the whole book, but are able to put the pieces together easily. There were bits that I would tell myself to remember, but would become so ensconced in the novel that I would set the knowledge aside. But at the end, I was able to remember these little tidbits and put the case together. None it felt forced, everything seemed completely natural, and in a crime novel, it is easy to cross that line and make the plot feel forced or implausible.  I like that the case was not an easy solve, which for an avid reader is hard to accomplish.

(Source: Giphy)

Pretty much, everything about the book was completely believable. I could see Manon's dating life actually happening, her work life actually happening, the case actually happening. That is what made me not be able to put the book down. I became very invested in her life and the lives of the other characters. Edith's character does annoy me because she seems very entitled despite the fact that she tries so hard to not come off that way, which actually makes her come off that way. But again, she is a character that I can imagine in real life. Because of this, I was very excited to find out there was a sequel, Persons Unknown.

Rating: 8/10

Author: Susie Steiner

Series: DS Manon (1 of 2)

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Thriller

Dates Read: October 1-5, 2018