Gone by Mo Hayder

I had not heard of Mo Hayder (www.mohayder.net) prior to reading Gone but I am glad to make her acquaintance. It has been nominated for an Edgar award (Best Novel) by Mystery Writers of America and delivers a mystery to be solved wrapped in enough suspense to keep you up at night, turning those pages. Gone is the fifth offering in a series featuring Detective Inspector Jack Caffery of Bristol’s Major Crime Investigation Unit. His foil is Sergeant Flea Marley, head of the police diving squad, who has a hinted-at past with Caffery.

The book starts with a bang: a woman has her car jacked while she loads the weekly groceries in the trunk (or boot–you’ll learn some Brit vocab from the book). Not a big deal, until we find out her 11-year-old daughter Martha is in the back seat. Caffery is convinced the carjacking is just that, not a kidnapping, and Martha will show up on the side of the road somewhere. She doesn’t.

The carjacker strikes again in a similar way and another little girl disappears. Caffery is stymied when the jacker seems to know what Caffery’s going to do almost as soon as Caffery does. Flea Marley pursues her own theory about the case with a search of an abandoned, flooded tunnel and ratchets up the tension as the jacker is slowly revealed to the reader. The story is resolved in a satisfying climax and (spoiler alert) no children are harmed in the writing of this book.

My reviews of the ten total nominees for Best Novel and Best First Novel each will carry a rating on a liked-least to liked-most scale of 1 to 10.

Gone: 7

What Words Cannot Say

I am reminded of the shortest story ever told, which, if memory serves, is attributed to Ernest Hemingway.

For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.

Everything to See

I sit in Starbucks finishing the last ten pages of Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, drinking Chai tea, ignoring the Saturday ruckus around me.  In one of the other three comfy chairs, which form a tight circle around a low table, sits an elderly woman with an e-reader.  A friendly-looking middle-aged man approaches, enters our circle and plops down.  The elderly woman recognizes him and greets him by name.  He nods but says nothing.  She asks how he’s doing.

“The airplanes outside my room are too loud.  They make me nervous.  I don’t like them.  They’re too  loud.”

She asks him if he can just try to ignore them.  He repeats what he’s already told her.

He gets up and goes outside to smoke a cigarette.  The woman and I exchange a glance.

“He’s harmless,” she says.  I wonder if I look scared.

“I don’t like loud noise either.  I can relate to what he was saying,” I say.

“He’s mentally ill.  He won’t hurt anyone.  He’s in here all the time and they know him here.”  She repeats that he’s harmless.

I’m surprised she keeps assuring me there’s nothing to fear.  I know many people who are mentally ill, including several people in my extended family.  Many of them deal with difficult living conditions, tenuous or broken family relationships and medical problems exacerbated by their mental illness.  My reaction isn’t fear but admiration at their ability to carry on.  Maybe she’s just reassuring herself, I think.

He comes back in and sits down with us.  They talk about the weather and other innocuous topics while I finish my book.  I leave, grateful for people like this woman who extend small kindnesses to others, most unseen or unnoticed.