Product Description

When a child disappears, who takes the blame?

It is the summer of 1968, the day Senator Robert Kennedy is shot. Two
nine-year-old girls, Eleanor Ramsay and Alice Howland, are playing hide and
seek in the ruins of Tide Mills, a deserted village on the Sussex coast.
Eleanor hides, but Alice never comes to find her. Thirty years later she is
still missing.
A tense thriller about obsession and guilt, this is also the emotionally
charged story about what happens to those who are left behind when a child
vanishes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #281744 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amy Myers, SHOTSMAG.CO.UK
'The path to the truth takes unexpected turns in this well-structured and
well-written novel...the conclusion is a tense and gripping one. On the
edge of my seat? No way - I was cowering under it.'

SHE MAGAZINE (BOOKS OF THE MONTH)
'This emotionally charged thriller grips from the first paragraph, and a nail-biting level of suspense is maintained throughout. A great second novel.'

About the Author
Lesley Thomson is the author of Seven Miles from Sydney
(Pandora), a crime thriller set in Australia, and co-author of actress Sue
Johnston's autobiography Hold on to the Messy Times (HarperCollins). She
has lived in all of the novel's locations and now lives in Lewes. Tide
Mills is the ruins of a once busy village on the Sussex coast, which she
discovered by accident while walking her dog.

Customer Reviews

A Kind of Vanishing
Lesley Thomson weaves an intricate and mesmerising storyline guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. Initially, the story is set in the late 1960s and beautifully evokes the attitudes and atmosphere of the times. Two nine-year-old girls from very different backgrounds are forced to play together, against their wishes, by their well-meaning parents. One of them vanishes without trace. The narrative continues apace and explores the complex relationships within and between the two families involved as the years unfold and the child is not found. The plot develops with many twists and turns as it heads towards a truly chilling penultimate chapter. Concluding at a Millennium Eve party, the novel is very relevant to present times reflecting,as it does, people's increasing anxieties and concerns over the vulnerability of young children to the evils of modern society.A thoroughly enjoyable read.

A new genre
This is an exceptionally intelligent and subtle crime novel. Thomson's characters are beautifully crafted, both their external actions and their internal lives. Her eye for detail and insight into behaviour and motivation is a cut above most crime novels, leading the reader into uncomfortable areas of the self. She holds you spellbound until the final page. Thoroughly recommended.

Guess again
My wife kind of vanished for a few days. Then I noticed this book seemed to to occupy the space where she used to be. When she returned I picked the book up and kind of vanished too...
This book really keeps you guessing. There are a series of mysteries that keep you intrigued so you have to find an explanation for them. This is a murder mystery where you are not even sure the crime has been committed.
As you read through the book you are left with a series of questions. At the start of the story you are introduced to two beautifully drawn complex families through the inner thoughts of two nine year old girls who are thrown together as playmates but who don't really like each other much. One of these dissappears for the larger part of the novel and when she re-enters you are left confused but fascinated to work out what has really been going on. Thomson has a way of telling one story but leaving you in no doubt that something else is going on behind the main narrative and leaving it tantalisingly beyond your reach until the very end.
The story is full of twists, the crime and the criminal hinted at throughout but not named until the final two chapters. This is a fine telling of a tale based on an elaborate maze of distrust, it's very much a story of our time where right and wrong live together in a kind of restless intimacy.