How do you
look for someone hiding in plain sight?
Claire Fletcher is missing. She was on her way to school
when she was abducted….. That was ten years ago.
Detective Connor Parks has had a rough day at work. Shooting
an unarmed man, even though the victim was a serial rapist, can put the
detective’s job in jeopardy. But the evening is turning out to be quite
extraordinary for Connor. He has met the most incredible and equally mysterious
woman ever. Their conversation extends
to Connor’s home. The morning after, Connor finds the woman gone, leaving a note
for him.
“Claire Fletcher, 1201 Archer Street, Sacramento, CA “
This is not a one night stand for Connor Parks but this woman is so mysterious that she almost seems to be surreal.
Claire Fletcher is missing and
she wants to be “found ”.
The premise had me hooked right
away that I just had to request for it from Netgalley. And the first couple of chapters were really compelling to read too. At a certain point I was hoping that the book
wouldn’t become too cliched. Thankfully it didn’t.
This is not mystery, we know early on that Claire is
being held captive and is being tortured by her abductor and Connor Parks could probably
be the one to rescue her. So the
question is, will Claire Fletcher ever be free? The book is a psychological
thriller and it does get graphic sometimes, so be prepared to feel squeamish
when reading it. The author has interspersed the narrative with Claire’s voice
too, so we readers are privy to Claire’s thoughts and her suffering at the
hands of her abuser.
” I didn’t know whether I wanted to live or die. I thought that if he
returned, I would wish that I had died. But if I wanted to live, I had to do
something because I knew that it had been days since I’d had anything to eat or
drink. I remembered reading about people who drank their own urine to survive
while trapped in the wilderness or under collapsed buildings in the rubble left
by earthquakes. I wondered if I really wanted to live badly enough to do something
that my fifteen – year – old mind could only describe as so gross. But my
fantasy of SWAT rescuers and being reunited with my family had been my
sustenance for so long that I could not let go of that one last, ragged thread
on which my will to live dangled.
I drank the wash water.”
My reactions:
The book was un-put-downable for
most parts and I was intrigued to know how it ends. However, in the second half
of the book, it took me a while to realise why Claire was looking for closure
when she goes after her abuser, where hunted becomes the hunter. This part was
a tad bit stretchy for me ( just a tad, so go on and ignore this comment
). Do watch out for the twist in the
climax, isn’t there always one?
