The Missing by C.L Taylor

I

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 Wilkinsons 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…

I loved both The Accident and The Lie by C.L Taylor and when I heard Cally talking briefly last year about The Missing she grabbed my attention with the little snippet she gave us and I have been so impatient waiting for the release.

The Wilkinson family are distraught after 15 year old Billy goes missing one night leaving no clues as to where he has gone. The family have every possible scenario going around in their minds but the main question is he dead or alive. As mum Claire refuses to give up hope she is determined to find a clue as to where her son is and what has happened to him but before long she uncovers secrets that have been hidden from her from those she trusts.

I only meant to open the book and read the first page which is a habit of mine but when I read the first page before long I found myself on page 8 and although I felt guilty stopping my current read this book demanded my full attention. Our main character is Claire and although I don't have children myself I could feel her desperation through the pages, she needed answers just as much as she wanted her son Billy to walk straight back through the door. We follow Claire's events through the book but we also get snippets of conversation told through instant message which builds a vague picture of an unsettling relationship/friendship which the relevance of these messages is cleared up later in the book.

Cally Taylor was very clever pulling the wool over my eyes, at various points in the book I was adamant I knew who was involved but then before long I soon become suspicious of another character which threw a spanner in the works, I actually think I had accused everyone in my mind at some point other than Claire herself! The ending was unpredictable which rounded this book off perfectly.

I was gripped by this storyline, it had a quick pace and a great element of suspense with a family of characters who have their faults but are a typical family. This storyline did have a different feel to it compared with the previous books, I didn't find this storyline as tense and gritty but that didn't effect my enjoyment of the storyline it just showed a different side to the authors writing style. C.L Taylor has done it again and delivered another compelling read.

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