The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid

            A mother and her adopted son are separated by airport security at check in.  The mother caught in a Perspex holding area awaiting her security check sees her child walking away hand in hand with a stranger.  She runs after her child only to be tasered by airport staff, but determined to reach her child she gets up and resumes the chase only to be tasered again.  In the resultant chaos the abductor and child disappear and then the FBI is brought in to investigate.  With the procedural investigation underway the mother, in an attempt to uncover possible abductors narrates the story leading up to the adoption of her son.

            McDermid skilfully interjects details of the ongoing investigation throughout this narrative.  She does this in pithy short bursts which keep the reader focussed on the plight of abducted child, whilst the gentle descriptive flow of the mother’s narrative gives us greater awareness of the context of the boy’s young life, before he was even conceived.

This novel has a wide range of wholly believable characters and McDermid’s descriptions successfully illustrate the development and falling apart of the relationships in the book.  With a series of twists and turns McDermid leads us to the final psychological denouement, (which despite the many clues skilfully scattered through the narrative, eluded me till near the end).  Then when you think you can take no more, she ends with a final psychological flip that, though shocking was, in my mind, quite satisfying.