I Know Where She Is by S B Caves

The fact that the book I read before this one was centred around the same crime—paedophilia/sexual abuse/torture—(not intentional, incidentally…I had no idea before I started either book!)—may suggest that it’s a slightly overdone story line...perhaps.

However, that said, for a debut novel, this is quite an explosive burst onto the literary scene for this author.

Ten years after Francine’s daughter's (Autumn) abduction, she receives a note saying quite simply: I know where she is. The note’s author, Lena, makes herself known to Francine shortly after and tells her she does indeed know where Autumn is. Clinging on to that last vestige of hope that her daughter is still alive, Francine, armed with vague snippets of information from Lena, does things she’d probably only ever seen in movies to try and find her daughter. But a mother will do anything, anything for her child.

It's all a bit ‘convenient’, there are no real intricacies in the plot, there are some plausibility issues, and the story lacks a bit of padding. It isn’t a long book, but I think its conciseness is at the expense of some finer details. The ending is a little hurried and abrupt. But, but, but...for all that, this was a very well-written, gripping—albeit dark, unsettling, disturbing—and compelling story and certainly had me glued to the pages from start to finish.

An excellent start for this author, and I’ll certainly be looking out for his future novels.