No One Saw a Thing

Sive, a journalist, her hot-shot lawyer husband Aaron, and their three children have left Dublin for the weekend. They are in London for a reunion with Aaron’s university housemates. The arrogant Aaron is in a class of his own for odious self-importance, dragging his entire family on a trip to London to meet up with a bunch of people he clearly doesn’t like (any more than I did!)

Whilst her husband is off doing his own thing on the Monday morning, Sive is left to look after the children. Struggling with the little ones, a cumbersome pram, and her mobile in the underground, the distracted mother fails to stop her two girls getting on the train without her. But Sive’s nightmarish imagination is about to take on a third dimension, because at the next stop, only one little girl is waiting for her mummy on the platform.

The longer Bea is lost, the more convinced Sive becomes that she has been abducted. But no one has seen a little blond-haired girl, with a Frozen backpack, wearing a pink jacket, let alone one being dragged heaven knows where by a faceless monster.

In London, there could be thousands of potential abductors and a million places to hide a little girl. And everyone knows the chances of finding a kidnapped child fade under the weight of each passing hour. Time is running out for Bea, lost in a dangerous warren.

The first chapter hit the ground running, taut with what-ifs, catapulting my emotions into the moment that all parents dread and the drama swept me along. Unfortunately, after that, the story did start to flag.

This book is begging for a dose of less-is-more. There are too many cliff-hangers, too many lies, too many dislikeable characters with too many secrets, all of which bog down a potentially outstanding book.