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Kevin Beldon
Missing Children
When ten-year-old Shawn Thorpe suddenly vanishes on a museum outing, her family descends into turmoil. Her father, Lorne, a doctor, drinks and self-medicates -- his increasingly bizarre behaviour driving his wife from the house and thwarting the police investigation led by Kevin Beldon. Is the abductor one of Lorne's colleagues? A member of the local community association? Or...? As the suspects begin to fall by the wayside, Shawn suddenly reappears. She's unharmed. And she refuses to talk. Beldon and Dr. Thorpe, in an improbable alliance, sharpen their investigation to a fine point. But even as they hone in on Shawn's abductor, more children go missing.
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2015
1 person is currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Gerald Lynch
15 books6 followersGerald Lynch was born on a farm at Lough Egish in Co. Monaghan, Ireland, and grew up in Canada. His latest novel is *Plaguing Jake,* published in 2024 by At Bay Press. *The Dying Detective* (2020) was the concluding novel of a trilogy comprising *Omphalos* and *Missing Children.* These novels were preceded by *Troutstream,* *Exotic Dancers,* and two books of short stories, *Kisbey* and *One’s Company.* He has published numerous short stories, essays, and reviews, as well as having edited a number of books. He has also authored two books of non-fiction, *Stephen Leacock: Humour and Humanity* and *The One and the Many: Canadian Short Story Cycles.* He has been the recipient of a few awards, including the gold award for short fiction in Canada’s National Magazine Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 29, 2016
(Full disclosure: My own books come from the same publisher, and I have met Gerard Lynch. That said…)
This is a bizarre, and in places very violent, mystery set in an imagined suburb of Ottawa. In his third work set in totally-normal appearing Troutstream, author Gerald Lynch takes us on a wild ride during a baking late-summer week in the burbs. The writing is beautiful, but the story is difficult. Of course many crime stories contain the satirical element; it is usually basic, if not essential, to the investigating cop’s point of view as he/she works through a degraded society in search of a perpetrator. But no matter how mawkish and damning the cop’s voice, crime remains the focus. Whereas in Missing Children the cop is secondary to a victimized father. Yes, a missing child is at the crux but that focus quickly blurs. It takes time (and patience) before we understand that this tale is dark social satire wearing a loose-fitting crime novel hat. If you hang in, you will laugh. And cry. And be delighted by a gifted writer’s skills. But through the self-obsessed narrative voice of his main character, Gerald Lynch makes you work to get there.
Dr. Lorne Thorpe is a respected oncologist, to some, a hero. To his wife Veronica and kids - adolescent son Owen and “tween” daughter Shawn - he is a sarcastic joker who never knows when to quit with the glib come-backs and one-liners. Lorne loves his family but he cannot connect. The Thorpe household is going through the sort of rocky time most readers will recognize. It explodes one Sunday when Lorne takes daughter Shawn to a museum exhibit and she disappears as he is momentarily distracted by his own clever, peevish stream of thoughts.
Enter investigator Kevin Beldon, stolid, in no way cowed by the impatient, panicking doctor. Add the grim backdrop of a serial killer currently stalking a downtown area, taking young hookers, who may now be hunting farther afield. A devastated mother, an emotionally wounded adolescent son. We know exactly where we are viz. crime stories. We expect the well-respected doc to expect special treatment. We expect the cop to be cool. Just as we instantly recognize a modern family going through a difficult time that will crystalize in crisis. These are crime story clichés. Lynch sets them up; then, on the strength of Lorne Thorpe’s narrative voice, breaks through them, leading us to a stranger place where fantasy rules. In the process, our mystery-reading instincts get confused.
You’ve heard of the “unreliable narrator”. (If you are not into literary theory, perhaps you’ve seen the film The Usual Suspects.) In Missing Children, Lorne Thorpe is both narrator and central witness to the snatching of his child. He has to be pumped for information, both personal and professional: is there someone in his life who would do this awful thing? Between the rational, hyper-critical doctor, the cranky neighbour, the bloody-minded joker and (thanks to a steady intake of stress-flattening scotch and pills) the foggy, sentimental, self-pitying dad, Lorne’s view of things at home and at work unwinds like a phantasmagoric parade, often funny, just as often grotesque and unsettling.
Beyond the typical Thorpe family and a cop called Kevin, the cast of characters verges on the surreal. Wy (whom we never meet but is a central reference point throughout) is a quasi-mystic kid’s TV host who travels with a wise goat seducing adoring children’s souls. Jake is a hyper-kinetic Downs child who lives next door, whose mum has taught him the fine art of victimhood. Bob is a dwarfish holistic healer who has a magic touch with kids. Larry and Gary are ogre-like twin bachelors running a corrupt building business, feeding on contracts rubber-stamped by Debbie and her assistant Alice, two distorted, shape-shifting ladies who pilot the school bus and run the corrupt neighbourhood association that controls the park which is both the site of said contracts and the centre of the children’s world. If you notice certain words there, that’s by design, in keeping with Gerald Lynch’s.
It is fun but problematic. Dr. Lorne Thorpe is (very!) hard to like. Harder still: in the story, Lorne’s daughter Shawn is missing. The more Lorne rants and mocks and indulges his self-pity, the more it seems Shawn goes missing from the story because her dad is so wrapped up in himself. The impatient part of me wanted to call in the editor. This is a father we ought to be falling in behind. The title of the book, and the premise set out in the opening scene, make us want and expect to go forward into the police or criminal side of the tale. But this is Dr. Lorne’s gig.
I kept going with Lorne and was rewarded with some beautiful, if occasionally gut-wrenching, writing.
It is violent in stretches. Not in the action, per se, but the in the recounting of violence. Lynch’s powers of description are such that it shakes you. It takes pretty much the entire book to realize that “missing children” include “abused” children, “neglected” children and, most pointedly, “perpetual” children. Lynch risks losing us more than once in taking us to that point. The best solution is to enjoy the writing and the characters, and let the plot be what it is.
The conclusion is like a dark fairy tale… which devolves back to a sentimentally pastel suburban tableau.
4 stars. Missing Children is a challenging read held together by excellent writing and damning, painfully funny social commentary. I would call Lorne Thorpe’s long and intensely detailed first bit of backstory a plotting glitch that might have been handled in a more artful way that kept the actual missing child in focus. But I am very pleased to have discovered Gerald Lynch’s crazy vision. Try it!
This is a bizarre, and in places very violent, mystery set in an imagined suburb of Ottawa. In his third work set in totally-normal appearing Troutstream, author Gerald Lynch takes us on a wild ride during a baking late-summer week in the burbs. The writing is beautiful, but the story is difficult. Of course many crime stories contain the satirical element; it is usually basic, if not essential, to the investigating cop’s point of view as he/she works through a degraded society in search of a perpetrator. But no matter how mawkish and damning the cop’s voice, crime remains the focus. Whereas in Missing Children the cop is secondary to a victimized father. Yes, a missing child is at the crux but that focus quickly blurs. It takes time (and patience) before we understand that this tale is dark social satire wearing a loose-fitting crime novel hat. If you hang in, you will laugh. And cry. And be delighted by a gifted writer’s skills. But through the self-obsessed narrative voice of his main character, Gerald Lynch makes you work to get there.
Dr. Lorne Thorpe is a respected oncologist, to some, a hero. To his wife Veronica and kids - adolescent son Owen and “tween” daughter Shawn - he is a sarcastic joker who never knows when to quit with the glib come-backs and one-liners. Lorne loves his family but he cannot connect. The Thorpe household is going through the sort of rocky time most readers will recognize. It explodes one Sunday when Lorne takes daughter Shawn to a museum exhibit and she disappears as he is momentarily distracted by his own clever, peevish stream of thoughts.
Enter investigator Kevin Beldon, stolid, in no way cowed by the impatient, panicking doctor. Add the grim backdrop of a serial killer currently stalking a downtown area, taking young hookers, who may now be hunting farther afield. A devastated mother, an emotionally wounded adolescent son. We know exactly where we are viz. crime stories. We expect the well-respected doc to expect special treatment. We expect the cop to be cool. Just as we instantly recognize a modern family going through a difficult time that will crystalize in crisis. These are crime story clichés. Lynch sets them up; then, on the strength of Lorne Thorpe’s narrative voice, breaks through them, leading us to a stranger place where fantasy rules. In the process, our mystery-reading instincts get confused.
You’ve heard of the “unreliable narrator”. (If you are not into literary theory, perhaps you’ve seen the film The Usual Suspects.) In Missing Children, Lorne Thorpe is both narrator and central witness to the snatching of his child. He has to be pumped for information, both personal and professional: is there someone in his life who would do this awful thing? Between the rational, hyper-critical doctor, the cranky neighbour, the bloody-minded joker and (thanks to a steady intake of stress-flattening scotch and pills) the foggy, sentimental, self-pitying dad, Lorne’s view of things at home and at work unwinds like a phantasmagoric parade, often funny, just as often grotesque and unsettling.
Beyond the typical Thorpe family and a cop called Kevin, the cast of characters verges on the surreal. Wy (whom we never meet but is a central reference point throughout) is a quasi-mystic kid’s TV host who travels with a wise goat seducing adoring children’s souls. Jake is a hyper-kinetic Downs child who lives next door, whose mum has taught him the fine art of victimhood. Bob is a dwarfish holistic healer who has a magic touch with kids. Larry and Gary are ogre-like twin bachelors running a corrupt building business, feeding on contracts rubber-stamped by Debbie and her assistant Alice, two distorted, shape-shifting ladies who pilot the school bus and run the corrupt neighbourhood association that controls the park which is both the site of said contracts and the centre of the children’s world. If you notice certain words there, that’s by design, in keeping with Gerald Lynch’s.
It is fun but problematic. Dr. Lorne Thorpe is (very!) hard to like. Harder still: in the story, Lorne’s daughter Shawn is missing. The more Lorne rants and mocks and indulges his self-pity, the more it seems Shawn goes missing from the story because her dad is so wrapped up in himself. The impatient part of me wanted to call in the editor. This is a father we ought to be falling in behind. The title of the book, and the premise set out in the opening scene, make us want and expect to go forward into the police or criminal side of the tale. But this is Dr. Lorne’s gig.
I kept going with Lorne and was rewarded with some beautiful, if occasionally gut-wrenching, writing.
It is violent in stretches. Not in the action, per se, but the in the recounting of violence. Lynch’s powers of description are such that it shakes you. It takes pretty much the entire book to realize that “missing children” include “abused” children, “neglected” children and, most pointedly, “perpetual” children. Lynch risks losing us more than once in taking us to that point. The best solution is to enjoy the writing and the characters, and let the plot be what it is.
The conclusion is like a dark fairy tale… which devolves back to a sentimentally pastel suburban tableau.
4 stars. Missing Children is a challenging read held together by excellent writing and damning, painfully funny social commentary. I would call Lorne Thorpe’s long and intensely detailed first bit of backstory a plotting glitch that might have been handled in a more artful way that kept the actual missing child in focus. But I am very pleased to have discovered Gerald Lynch’s crazy vision. Try it!
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March 12, 2016I was once advised to write about what I most fear. That seems to be precisely the territory Gerald Lynch has entered in this novel about a child who goes missing. Despite the gravity of the topic, the book is often a hilarious lampooning of our conventions and expectations. The protagonist, Lorne is the composite quipster (he can't help himself) and the characters he encounters, each of which is distinctly, often uniquely flawed, aren't so much drawn, as overheard. Who knew such darkness lurked in the shadows of Troutstream (aka Orleans, a suburb of the town-that-fun-forgot, Ottawa). Kudos Gerald. Another page turning, thought provoking riot of prose.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews