Review: THE MISSING by C.L. Taylor
The Missing by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
About The Missing (description from goodreads)
You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them. Or do you…?
When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire Wilkinson, 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 Wilkinson’s 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?
My review:
This was the first C.L. Taylor book I read and wow! THE MISSING is amazing. It has everything I want in a psychological thriller: strong characters, a fast pace, a tightly woven plot, and tonnes of secrets.
As a protagonist, Claire is great. She ticks all the boxes–and I love that she has flaws. She’s realistic. The supporting characters were equally good. And Kira, I loved her.
Now let’s talk about the twists. They were fabulous. They made sense, they were foreshadowed to an extent, and I did NOT see any of them coming.
I read this novel super quickly too, in less than 24 hours. If you’re looking for a psychological thriller that keeps ‘the family’ at its heart–and works to show the true dysfunction–then yes, read this book. Read it now.
Shortly after reading this, I was delighted to find that I already had a copy of Taylor’s THE LIE and will definitely get hold of THE ACCIDENT too. That just shows how good THE MISSING is. C.L. Taylor is now on my list of ‘authors I’ll read anything from’.
