Between the Pages

This was an audiobook narrated by Laura Brattan, with three narrators: Lisa Kallisto, who is a harassed but loving mother and wife, devastated when the 13 year old daughter of her friend goes missing – when Lisa was supposed to be looking after her; an unnamed narrator who, it quickly becomes obvious, is a paedophile; and a third person narrator who concentrates mainly on the police investigation into the missing girl.

Lisa is understandably wracked with guilt when Lucinda Rivety disappears, and more so when it is believed that she was taken by a man who had already taken one girl and subjected her to a brutal rape. As Lisa’s world falls apart, the race is on to find Lucinda, but in so doing, secrets and lies become known and it seems that people are not always what they seem.

I don’t want to give too much away about the story, but I will say that I liked Lisa a lot. I also liked Joanne, the Detective Constable investigating the disappearance. However, there was a side story featuring Joanne wanting to get a breast reduction and I felt this served no purpose in the story and could easily have been edited out.

There was one twist which I didn’t predict and which I thought was well done, but the final denouement seemed rushed, as though the author had just tacked the ending on to get it finished quickly. Having said that, I did enjoy the book for the majority of the time, although most of the characters were not particularly likeable (the aunt of the missing girl was particularly unbearable). There was also another twist which seemed ludicrous to me, and spoiled the book somewhat. Nonetheless, I would read or listen to more by Paula Daly.

On a final note, the narration was excellent.