NerdyBirdie

Oh, look! It’s me not loving a book I should love… again! I think my 3 star rating is actually more of a “It was okay… could’ve been better.”

Anyway; Missing, Presumed revolves around the disappearance of the beautiful Edith Hind, who’s the daughter of the famous surgeon Ian Hind. When her disappearance becomes a high profile case, the responsibility to find the truth falls onto the Cambridgeshire police force, one of them being our main character, DS Manon Bradshaw.

This literary crime novel is definitely more character based. The novel spent more time revolving around Manon’s problems and her love life (online website dating descriptions) than the case. It almost made the first half unbearable. I also found Manon to be an annoying character which lead to another problem: it’s harder to enjoy the novel when you don’t like the main character.

Along with my problem for Manon (she did redeem herself in the end), there are various perspectives that are shown within the novel. I was hoping the police department would be closer considering the kinds of cases they work on, but the only side characters who were really brought to life (in my opinion) were Davy, Mariam, and Helena.

The mystery itself was very slow moving. And once a small thing happened in the book (a little over halfway) I knew who did it. And I was right. So, unfortunately, I didn’t get to appreciate the plot twist as much. There were also a lot of irrelevant events that were discussed in the book in terms of what happened when Edith disappeared.

I wish I felt for Edith. But, honestly, she just reminded me of those fakes who have grown up with money and upperclass society and make a huge show of being “simple” and “minimalist”. Edith was such an irritating brat.

I didn’t really enjoy the ending. It felt all too “wrapped up in a bow” for me. And I still wasn’t too fond of most of the characters.

Although this book is a good literary crime novel, you should pay attention to the fact that it is less crime and more about characters. Even then, if the characters are unlikable for you, the enjoyment of the novel goes down. And plus, if you guess the mystery, then it also makes the anticipation very disappointing.