Publishers Weekly
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The disappearance of eight-year-old Daisy Mason from a costume party at her home in Oxford, England, drives this insidious, slow-moving novel-as horribly fascinating as a train wreck-from the pseudonymous Hunter. Oddly, no one can pinpoint when the girl was last seen. As the hours turn to days, Daisy's vanishing galvanizes the community, with unexpected results. The lives of everyone-from her family and neighbors to the people at her school-are drawn into a web of deceit and rising tension. Det. Insp. Adam Fawley, the lead investigator, is awash in his own deep-seated troubles, while Daisy's agitated father and disaffected mother clearly have something to hide. Even Daisy's older brother, Leo, reacts strangely to the police and their questions, at times upset and other times curiously detached. The lack of clues rattles the police and public until torrents of social media accusations incite action. Hunter does a masterly job of building tension and keeping the reader guessing to the very end. Agent: Anna Power, Johnson & Alcock (U.K.). (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Library Journal
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[DEBUT] Eight-year-old Daisy Mason disappears from her parents' middle-class Oxford home while they are hosting a barbecue to celebrate the end of the school year. By the time DI Adam Fawley is called in, most of the adults at the party have trampled the grounds and the surrounding neighborhood looking for the little girl and there is no evidence to show where she might have gone or with whom. It is almost as if she was never at the barbecue at all, and as the investigation gathers steam, evidence mounts that perhaps she never was and that nothing is as it first appears. Verdict Debut author Hunter writes a multilayered British police procedural in which each layer that is peeled back reveals another secret to keep readers hooked to the very end. [A Judy and Richard Book Club Spring 2018 pick.]-Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Daisy Mason is a pretty, clever eight-year-old, so her disappearance after a summer party in her Oxford backyard engenders increasing publicity. DI Adam Fawley, leading the case, knows all too well the need for quick action, having lost a child himself, a situation that raises some concern about his leading this investigation. He also knows the high probability that the perpetrator is someone close to home. So Daisy's parents come under close scrutiny: her distraught father, Barry, obviously loves his daughter dearly, but possibly inappropriately, while her mother, Sharon, is emotionally cold, perhaps even jealous of her husband's love for their daughter. From the start, the investigation proceeds in fits and starts: the Masons aren't sure when they last saw Daisy, nor did they know that she had traded her flower costume with another child that day. Then evidence reveals Barry's unsavory activities and Sharon's compromising background, as the plot twists and turns to the final pages, detailing the results of parental love and loss. Hunter presents a fast-moving blend of police procedural and psychological thriller that keeps pages turning.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2018 Booklist