From Amazon.com
In this heavily atmospheric thriller by talented writer Michelle Spring, the disappearance of the 4-year-old son of polar explorer Jack Cable is still unsolved after more than a decade. Then a teenage street musician attracts the attention of Cable's wife, Olivia. Certain that the boy is their son, the Cables enlist the services of private investigator Laura Principal. Laura's brief is to discover whether Liam is really the son whose memory is still very much alive within his family, and while her efforts to authenticate Olivia's hunch are not particularly engrossing, her concern for the Cables is deep and heartfelt enough to involve the reader in her quest.
Higher praise belongs to Spring for her gifts of description. Here she shows off her well-honed talent for narrative, character development, and skill in recreating the brooding melancholy of England in midwinter. Fans of Frances Fyfield and Barbara Vine will appreciate Spring's intelligence, craft, and psychological acuity, all on view in this compulsively readable new novel. --Jane Adams
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
English sleuth Laura Principal makes a fifth appearance in this lackluster follow-up to Spring's suspense thriller Nights in White Satin. Hired by Olivia and Jack Cable to investigate a young busker who may be their vanished son, Cambridge-based Principal has a sensitive case on her hands. Twelve years earlier, four-year-old Timmy was frolicking on a Norfolk beach with Jack, a polar explorer and TV personality, when he inexplicably disappeared. No body was ever found, and the Cables, particularly Olivia, never gave up hope. Now Olivia is convinced that Liam, a scruffy teenaged street musician, is really Timmy, and ecstatically welcomes him into their elegant country home. Privately, Jack expresses reservations about Liam, urging Laura to "check out the kid's background" without "heavying" him. Laura ingratiates herself with the extended Cable clan, including the neglected surviving daughter, Catherine; Olivia's solicitous brother, Max; and Max's petulant son, Robin. When the handyman is attacked and the kitchen vandalized, all the Cables are suspects--including Jack and Liam. Spring, a transplanted Canadian, doesn't bring off the gentrified country atmosphere or the nuances of English speech: her characters either rhapsodize bookishly (especially about Jack's heroism) or invoke The X-Files, Shania Twain and Pok‚mon cards. Even Laura's voice sounds jarringly North American ("It didn't seem very Philip Marlowe--but then, neither did respecting women or loving men or enjoying life, and I was into all of those"). Lacking authenticity and depth, the characters don't inspire much sympathy, despite the affecting missing-child plot. And when several new characters are introduced at the very end, the resolution seems both strained and formulaic, offering outlandish complications but no real surprises.
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--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
