Viewer's review: Geoff Williams reviews What Was Lost

What Was Lost
Catherine O'Flynn
ISBN-13: 978-0955138416

Kate Meaney, a bright but serious 10 year old, lives with her grandmother. Kate’s only close friends are Adrian, the 22-year-old son of a local newsagent, and the troubled new girl at school, Teresa.  As proprietor of detective agency Falcon Investigations, Kate, accompanied by her business partner Mickey the toy monkey, spends her out-of-school hours patrolling the malls of Green Oaks shopping centre, convinced that, before long, her relentless surveillance and meticulous note-taking will thwart a major crime.

Christmas Day at Green Oaks, and security guard Kurt listlessly scans the CCTV monitors. Suddenly, fleetingly, the figure of a young girl appears in the deserted banking hall, a toy monkey peeping from her bag. Intrigued, and recalling the case of local girl Kate Meaney, who disappeared without trace 20 years earlier, Kurt and disillusioned store manager Lisa set out to find the little girl who has flitted across the screen.

What Was Lost is an absorbing read which engaged me from the start with its well drawn account of Kate’s life, sympathetic characterisation and clever plotting.

It’s part mystery: why did Kate disappear? Was loner Adrian involved, as local people believed? Why are Kurt and Lisa so interested in the case of Kate Meaney? It’s part ghost story - how could the image of a little girl appear 20 years after her disappearance? And it’s part touching childhood reminiscence - many readers will surely see something of themselves in the young Kate.

But it’s so much more. At its heart, What Was Lost is, as its title suggests, a tale of loss - loss of family and friends, loss of ambition, loss of hope. It’s about our search for the things we’ve lost, the places that quest takes us, and the things we find when we make that journey.

By Geoff Williams, Bromley

Geoff has also recently read Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom and Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris