The missing pieces in your past can be deadly . . . Will Rebekah find hers before it’s too late?
Book blurb
Rebekah Murphy knows too much…
She knows she has a secret. She knows that what’s buried in her head is the reason someone is trying to kill her. There’s just one problem.
She doesn’t know what her secret is.
Trapped on an abandoned island, hundreds of miles from her children, with a killer on her trail, Rebekah must survive long enough to figure it out. But so much doesn’t make sense. Who is the person trying to silence her – and why? And why haven’t her family reported her missing or sent a rescue party?
Perhaps the answers lie back on the mainland, in her life there, in her past. But will getting home be the end of her nightmare –– or the beginning?
Detective Frank Travis doesn’t know enough…
He doesn’t know where to find Louise Mason. He doesn’t know why she vanished into thin air three months ago. And he doesn’t know the identity of the man last seen talking to her. Not yet.
But what he does know is that he’s a week away from retirement – and if he doesn’t find out where Louise went, no one will.
What neither Rebekah nor Detective Travis realise is that each holds a missing piece from the same puzzle – and it will cost them
everything they love to solve it…
My thoughts
Rebekah is an orthopaedic surgeon, married with two daughters her marriage is having problems so she and her husband Gareth have separated.
Rebekah thinks about her own family and her childhood. Her mother left when she and her brothers, Johnny and Mike, were young. Her father and the three children were obviously close. It is becoming important to her to stay connected with her family and this is why she offers to accompany Johnny on a trip he is making to Crow Island to meet with Dr Stelzik to research a book he is writing. Rebekah’s best friend Noella is looking after the girls for the day.
Frank Travis is a Police Detective he is very close to retiring and would dearly love to resolve the missing persons case of Louise Mason. Time is running out and he fears that when he has retired his replacement will not have the same desire to pursue the case.
Rebekah and Jonny arrive on Crow Island but everything is closed and people are leaving the island. They realise that Crow island will be totally shut down after the last ferry leaves. Johnny thought it was the next day when it would close up. So they hurry to meet Stelzik. When they find him something is not right and they are thrown into a nightmare. Someone wants Rebekah dead and will stop at nothing to kill her!
This book is written in the unusual style of ‘before’ and current chapters which means that you learn about what happens in a kind of backward way. This wasn’t the smoothest way of reading the story for me but has the advantage, for the author, of being able to play around with or withhold information to make it a more exciting read.
We back and forth with Rebekah and this is how the story of why she is a target unravels. I’m not sure how much of a fan of this style I am but whilst it didn’t overly annoy me I did find that it didn’t help me keep the number characters stay straight in my mind. Rebekah is recounting things that have happened played out in the ‘before’ chapters over the five months she spends trapped on Crow Island to try and figure out who’s after her and why anyone would want her dead. She is hell bent on surviving. How she manages to survive, how she can get home and most importantly how she can avoid being killed is interesting and yet tedious.
A few weeks after Travis retires he is invited by his former partner to join her new unit. Ames – Amy Houser – has been promoted to lieutenant and is now in charge of a new cold case unit. Travis sees this offer as a godsend both because he misses working and because he never found out what happened to Louise Mason. If he takes the job as a civilian investigator on Ames’ unit he will get access to information on the police databases and that means he could, surreptitiously, work on the Louise Mason case. He agrees to go to a meeting with Ames, her boss and Katherine McKenzie – Chief of Detectives. They agree that he should join the team.
Travis is now able to quietly pursue what happened to Lorna. In the course of this investigation he learns something that turns his attention to Rebekah and Johnny. Johnny dated Lorna! He requests information from the police in Long Island, making contact with a Detective Bowners. Will this help him find out what happened to Lorna? Will it he lead him to Rebekah?
Will Rebekah survive? Will she get off the island? Will she find out who wants her dead and why?
I liked the premise of the book. For me the first half could have been a little shorter. I liked some of the characters, not all are there to be liked of course but they are well drawn. There is pace and tension. When the motivation behind some actions is revealed it felt just short of being probable but other readers may not feel that. With that said the book starts off well and certainly picks up as spring arrives, Crow Island opens and we learn what happens. Missing Pieces is overall a pretty good read.
Book: Purchased
A Virtual Crime Book club
The Virtual Crime Book Club is hosted by Rebecca Bradley, author of the D I Hannah Robbins and D I Claudia Nunn series as well as standalone novels.
Rebecca is a great host and often gets the author to come along and chat with us – as she has with Missing Pieces. A great start to the book club for June as Tim Weaver joined to chat about his books, writing and more! It is really interesting listening.
⚠️ Warning ⚠️
You can watch the meeting below. Be aware it contain spoilers so, if you’re planning to read the book, perhaps better not to watch it until you’ve done so.
Watch June’s book club episode Missing Pieces
July’s Book Club
Silenced by Sólveig Pálsdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates and published by Corylus Books.
As a police team is called in to investigate a woman’s suicide at the Hólmsheiði prison outside Reykjavík, to detective Guðgeir Fransson it looks like a tragic but straightforward case.
It’s only afterwards that the pieces begin to fall into place and he takes a deeper interest in Kristín Kjarr’s troubled background, and why she had found herself in prison.
His search leads him to a series of brutal crimes committed twenty years before and the unexplained disappearance of the prime suspect, whose wealthy family closed ranks as every effort was made to keep skeletons securely hidden in closets – while the Reykjavík police struggle to deal with a spate of fresh attacks that bear all the hallmarks of a copycat.
The meeting is Monday 10th July at 8.10 p.m. BST.
You can find out more about joining the book club on Rebecca’s website.
#20Booksofsummer23
This is my second book and review for this challenge.
1. The Pawnshop of Stolen Dreams by Victoria Williamson
2. Missing Pieces by Tim Weaver
Information
Published: Penguin | 08/07/2021 | ISBN: 9781405943765 | Length: 512 pages
Buy: Amazon | Blackwells | Bookshop.org | Waterstones | WHSmith | Foyles | Hive
Author: Tim Weaver is the Sunday Times bestselling author of ten thrillers, including I Am Missing and You Were Gone. Weaver has been nominated for a National Book Award, selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, and shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library award. He is also the host and producer of the chart-topping Missing podcast, which features experts in the field discussing missing persons investigations from every angle. A former journalist and magazine editor, he lives near Bath with his wife and daughter.
TimWeaverWebsite | @TimWeaverBooks
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