Missing, Presumed [free sampler]

by Susie Steiner

SAMPLE CHAPTER

Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date – the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.

Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman – door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge post-graduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.

Is Edith alive or dead? Was her ‘complex love life’ at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press? And when a body is found, is it the end or only the beginning?

416 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 16, 2015

Reviews

[Bron Tilley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mild interest!

Does not grip me to want to read more. Too much emphasis on personal lives of police,feel that misper is afterthought

[Judy Churchill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the writing style. The plot was very complicated and well done. The overall story just didn't appeal to me.

[Flo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Susie Steiner has written the basics of a good police procedural, yet at some point the coincidences, the connections, and the police themselves overpower her story. Each short chapter is about another person, the parents of Edith, the Missing, Presumed of the title, Manon, one of the detectives, Davy another of the detectives,and one of Edith's girlfriends. Why do we have to be involved so deeply in Manon's love affair? Why do we have to know about Davy and his bitchy girlfriend? To me this just wasted time. All the threads--some quite hard to believe--are tied up rather quickly in the last 20% of the book. Still, this is Steiner's debut novel and hopefully her next ones will be better.

[Izzy Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoying it but it is not due out till February finished sampler

[Jenmalloy Chirichillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked all the characters of the police department enough but confusing mix of desperation and anti social tide of Manon didn’t leave we wondering if there are more in the series. The mystery is solved in half a paragraph was too convoluted for me

[Nancy K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this!

[Deanne Smithey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into this novel and then I was not really satisfied with the ending.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read

[Lorraine Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first Susie Steiner book. Must admit it took me a while to get into this but once it got going I quite enjoyed it, even reading through to the early hours to finish.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based in England. Good characters. Interesting twist at the end. Kept my interest. Quick read.

[Ginny Kavanagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edith Hind, a beautiful graduate student at Cambridge University is reported missing by her live-in boyfriend Will. He claims that he came home to find the doors open, her cell phone and purse in the house and blood evidence in the kitchen. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw is assigned the case. She loves being a police woman but wishes she had a more promising personal life. Her forays into internet dating have been famously unsuccessful. She's thirty-nine and still hoping to find The One. As she and her partner Davy dig into a Edith's relationships with family and friends, she meets the man she believes could be Mr. Right. But their relationship begins to fall apart the more she becomes involved with the characters in Edith's story. The characters are brought to life in this novel. They are not cardboard cutouts. But the story plods along at a snail's pace. "Literary" novel of suspense = yawn. 3 stars for character development.

[Edel Waugh Salisbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story about a woman called Edith Hind who's mysteriously vanishing causes a ripple effect to many people's lives leading the reader to very unexpected places and circumstances. What starts as a seemingly straightforward missing persons case soon has the authorities running around in different places and having to come into the most unlikely of people in relation to Edith. Edith was a far more complex person then any one person knew but her actions effected many. This was a very thought provoking book about how are actions alone can effect the lives
Of others but it is also was bittersweet showing the reader that even the most unlikely of people have the biggest hearts.

I received this book for review from the lovely people over at Lovereading.co.uk

[Jacquie Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. I read a lot of murder mysterys and this topped them all. Great Read!