RATING: OKAY
First Published: 2018
SPOILERS!!!
The book starts in 1996 with a missing person. It is Lenni Lucas, who never returned from the ice-cream shop, where she begged her sister Claire to be allowed to go alone. Lenni was 13 in 1996 but her parents were overprotective of her because she had learning disabilities. Lenni was never seen again, and Claire, who was looking after her, feels terribly guilty.
In present time Claire is married to Callum, a brain surgeon, and they have two children, 18-year-old Marcus and six-year-old Amy. They live close to her parents. Her father, Patrick, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and now her mother wants to sell the farm because she can't cope, and Patrick is upset. Claire then thinks that it would do her father good if he brought together her friends and brother, Jason, for a reunion.
Jason had a fall-out with his father and has his doubts about this reunion. He lives in London with his wife, Greta, who is expecting twins. Jason is an actor, but he hardly gets any parts, so it is Greta who brings the bacon home. Later on we learn that the reason why Jason and Patrick fell out is because Jason feels that his father let him down when he needed him. In London he started using drugs, and when he came home, asking for help and the cottage wher he could start afresh, Patrick refused.
Maggie is Claire's best friend, and she hasn't had much luck with men. Her daughter, Rain, is the result of an affair with a married MP. The MP doesn't want much to do with Rain and simply pays for her education. Rain is quite high-maintenance, and when her mother tells her about spending a week in Cornwall, she is anything but pleased.
Nick was Claire's crutch when she was a teenager. Actually, the day Lenni went missing, they had their first and only kiss. Nick is to open his restaurant soon after a hard year. His daughter Isobel died in a domestic accident, and his wife Jess left him after he discovered that she was having an affair.
Jason, Greta, Maggie, Rain and Nick agree to the week in Cornwall, and they arrive, looking forward to being with Claire. Things don't go as planned as things get complicated when Rain goes missing. Throughout the book we know that Lenni is alive because there are chapters when we hear her voice as she describes in her simple way that she is locked in some kind of basement, having visits from her kidnapper, and she is even allowed to go out from time to time. Yet, the conditions she lives in are horrible.
Rain proves to be a handful as she complains over and over again, and she even makes a pass at Callum. The night she goes out with Marcus and his friends, her mother says that she has spent the night out, but she is not worried because it is something that she is used to doing. Yet, we know that something happened with Callum because Jason saw him with her in the bed. Claire had been staying with her mother as her father had a fall and stayed in hospital.
The next day everybody goes to the beach for a picnic, and Marcus, Rain and some friends stay longer when the adults leave. Then Rain says that she wants to buy ice-cream and leaves. This is the last time Marcus sees her, and for days there is an investigation as Rain remains missing.
Then Callum is arrested when the police discover Rain's DNA in the bedroom and on the bed, and he is charged with sexually attacking a child. Claire thinks that this is a mistake, but then Rain is found. She is taken to hospital, and the girl tells the police and doctors how she got into bed with Callum because she thought that it was Marcus's room, and then she claims that she couldn't fight it. This is what Claire needs to realise that her husband is a pervert. He is freed on bail, and Claire tells him to go.
Then a woman in a terrible state appears at Shona's doorstep, and at first Shona thinks she is a tramp, but then she realises it is Lenni. Claire and Shona are shocked and over the moon, and Lenni is taken to hospital for some tests. It is then that Patrick's body is found in the basement of the run-down cottage of the property. This means that Patrick kept Lenni there for many years, and she rebelled and attacked him with a knife, which allowed her to run away.
In the last chapters we discover the truth of what happened. Patrick kidnapped and kept his daugther captive all these years because a few weeks before she had been raped. It was Callum who raped her while she was waiting for her father to arrive. Patrick allowed her to go to the disco when Shona, Claire and Jason were away. What Patrick never discovered was that his son-in-law raped Lenni. Rain discovered where Lenni was as she became obsessed with the case and she snooped around, and it was Rain who killed Patrick.
This was an intense read but I found the premise far-fetched.
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