This is the story of a missing kid, told from multiple perspectives. Her best friend, the gay mate (these are so thinly drawn they may as well have been named “girlie” and “token”), her mother, and on and on. It works to a point, but there’s also a “we” voice, and those voices are just a bridge too far. Its supposed to be a deeper, spirit of the forest/all missing children whispering to us thing, and it is an UTTER fail. Kills momentum, never fails to annoy.
The structure overall, with the different perspectives, is also something of a misfire – it renders the entire book an unreliable narrator, and while the resolution was clear from around the mid point, that doesn’t excuse concealing as much of the big picture as you can, just for a later reveal.
The cop character was great though, I’d read another story about him (although it might need to be fanfic, given my overall feeling). I’ll pass this on to mum, to read during the tennis, as she won’t need to pay any attention.