Published 11th September 2024 by riverrun.
From the cover of the book:
The people I work with call me 'Finder'. I'm a specialist, a finder of missing people.July 2015, Sevenoaks. 12-year-old schoolgirl Alice Johnson went missing while doing her paper round, her bag found discarded on the pavement. At 08.00, she was spotted standing in heavy rain at the side of the busy by-pass. At 11.00, she was seen talking to the driver of a black car in Tonbridge. After that, nothing. Alice was never found.
Nine years later the body of another schoolgirl, Joleen Price, is pulled from a nearby lake and a local man named Vince Burns detained. Convinced that Burns is guilty in both cases, SIO Dave Armstrong calls in the Finder to investigate the earlier disappearance.
Interviewing those who thought they knew her, the Finder gradually reveals a hidden Alice, a girl of surprising contradictions. Seeking answers from her divorced parents - an over-protective mother, a negligent father - the Finder is forced to consider violently opposing narratives. Was the timid 12-year-old a victim of the predator Burns, as he himself hints? Or was she carrying out a plan of her own?
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When the body of schoolgirl Joleen Price is pulled from a Kent lake, and local man Vince Burns is detained for her murder, SIO Dave Armstrong is convinced that Burns is also responsible for the disappearance of another young girl around the same time. Armstrong calls in the man known as Finder to look into the case of twelve-year-old Alice Johnson, who went missing from near-by Sevenoaks in 2015, and has never been found.
Finder starts at the beginning - the moment Alice vanished in the middle of her early-morning paper-round, leaving her bag discarded on the pavement. Was she really the victim of the smirking predator Burns? Armstrong believes so, but Finder is not so sure. Whatever happened to her, it seems those around her did not really know her...
Missing Person, Alice is the first of a new series by Simon Mason, author of the brilliant DI Wilkins series, introducing compelling new character, Iraqi-born Tahib, aka Finder. The novella unfurls in the first person narrative of Finder as he questions the people connected with the case, works through the evidence collected in the original inquiry, and unearths suprising new leads.
Mason maintains suspense and mystery in the clever way he does, keeping you guessing about Alice's fate until almost the very last moment of the novella. His characters are beautifully drawn, evoking responses that take you through a spectacular range of contrasting emotions (Burns is particularly unsettling). Finder's detached, rational style means he is cool as a cucumber, even in the face of intense provocation from those around him. This proves to be very helpful to him as he doggedly follows the trail of clues, and he has an innate ability to be able to elicit information purely by knowing when to speak and when to listen.
For everything you learn about the case, and Finder's ability to live up to his prodigious reputation, the man himself remains a curious mystery. He talks very little about himself, but Mason drops an intriguing hint or two about his past. I think there is a lot still to discover on that front, and look forward to how Mason reveals what lies under that unruffled surface, over the course of the series.
Mason packs a lot of rich themes into this novella. He uses Finder's musings over the book What Maisie Knew by Henry James, which he is reading during the investigation, so cleverly. The themes of childhood innocence in the face of bewildering neglect, abusive adult behaviour, and coming of age, that run through James' book, fit neatly with what Finder discovers about Alice's case. I also loved how Mason examines the wide ranging impact of a missing person on those left behind, starting with friends and family and encompassing the community as a whole. There are interesting things to ponder about quite how much we know about what lies in the hearts and minds of our children, and how they see us too.
This is a cracking first instalment of the Finder series. I swallowed it whole, entirely engrossed by plot, characterisation, and Mason's accomplished writing. So good, I am moving straight on to book two, The Case of the Lonely Accountant (which has been released at the same time as book one).
If you love the missing person investigation aspects of Tim Weaver's excellent David Raker books, then you will really enjoy this!
Missing Person, Alice is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to riverrun for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
A former Managing Director of David Fickling Books, where he worked with many wonderful writers, including Philip Pullman, he has also taught at Oxford Brookes University and has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow as Exeter College, Oxford.
His critically acclaimed DI Ryan Wilkins Mysteries, which started with A Killing in November have received numerous accolades, including being shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger, selected as Times Audio Book of the Week, and Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month.
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