Among the Missing

May 30, 2011
In this haunting psychological thriller from Joss (The Night Following), a recently married middle-aged English couple staying at a Scottish Highlands hotel hit a wall in their new relationship: she's pregnant and he doesn't want kids. Desperate for cash, the unnamed woman manages to sell her car to Stefan, an illegal immigrant living in a rundown trailer with his wife, Silva, and their two-year-old daughter, Anna. Hours later, the nearby bridge to Inverness collapses. When the car is reported missing and the woman is presumed dead, she decides to begin life anew as "Annabel." Overcome with guilt when she realizes that Stefan and Anna died in her car, Annabel goes to Silva's trailer, and the two women become uneasy friends. Meanwhile, Ron, recently released from prison after serving five years for criminal negligence and the third major player in the drama, finds work helping the bridge salvage operation and soon forms an unlikely bond with Annabel and Silva, but one that may not withstand the weight of their shared past tragedies. P.D. James fans will find much to like.

February 15, 2011

The harrowing collapse of a Scottish bridge links three lost souls as they lurch toward an even more horrifying finale.

Ron, Annabel and Silva are all in their different ways among the missing. Ron, who's just completed a prison term for inadvertently causing the disastrous bus accident that killed a pregnant teacher and six schoolchildren, is working a job for which he has no credentials. Annabel ran away from her 50-year-old bridegroom Colin after he refused to accept any responsibility for the baby she was carrying. Silva has always felt that she was merely the substitute for the baby of her mother's friend, who died while Silva's mother was pregnant. Now, in the aftermath of the catastrophic wreck of the bridge near Netherloch that brought them together to make an ad hoc household in an out-of-the-way trailer, each of them is keeping a secret. Ron, of course, tells no one about his sorry recent past. Annabel doesn't give her real name (it's not Annabel) when she approaches Silva looking for companionship. Nor does she tell her that, desperate for money, she'd illegally sold her rental car to Silva's husband Stefan for £3000 just before he and his daughter Anna set out across the bridge. And Silva doesn't even admit to herself what's clear to the other two: that her husband and child were among the victims. As spring turns to summer and then fall, repair work proceeds on the bridge as Annabel's baby grows within her. It's only a matter of time, however, before the secrets are revealed in a way that guarantees pity and terror.

Joss (The Night Following, 2008, etc.) builds the relationships among her sad trio slowly, through excruciatingly subtle modulations of tone. But the ending fully justifies every intimation of imminent doom.

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Starred review from May 1, 2011
This remarkable novel has an abundance of suspense at its core, put forth in beautiful prose that all but glows on the page. The setup is a common fantasy: an unhappily married Englishwoman, vacationing in Scotland with her drone of a husband, is mistakenly declared dead when a bridge collapses. Shes carrying enough cash to go anywhere and be anyone she wants; its her luck that the first person she meets is the widow of the man who died in her place. The two women narrate alternate chapters, gradually learning each others identity as one slips into madness, the other into despair. The reader knows what the women do not, yet the author keeps a jittery tension going as the novel spins toward its violent, grand-scaled finale. Like most thrillers with a literary bent, this one spends time with the thoughts and feelings of the characters. In lesser hands, this can be stultifying, especially if the people arent that interesting. But these two women have fascinating inner lives, and Joss details them in vivid, propulsive language.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)