‘Whistle in the Dark’ by Emma Healey begins with an ending; a sixteen-year old girl, lost in the Peak District, has been found and is in hospital with her parents. Healey tells the story of the aftermath as Jen, Lana’s mother, tries desperately to unravel the truth of what happened to her daughter. In the face of Lana’s reluctance to speak, Jen’s desperation evolves into obsession and the story circles into myth, obfuscation and misunderstanding. For the reader, there is a lot to unravel.
Told entirely from Jen’s POV, by halfway through I was beginning to question Jen’s state of mind and whether she was an unreliable narrator. There is a lot of smoke and shadows in the telling of this story, interwoven with the crystals of Jen’s friend Grace, the fibs of Lana’s schoolfriend Bethany, the pragmatic questioning and Instagram comments by Jen’s mother Lily, and Jen’s fertile imagination. There were times when it felt a little like being whizzed around in a washing machine. But through it all shines Healey’s ability to draw pictures with words, “The heavy summer foliage that lined the motorway seemed to have taken on its own light, as if the sun had splintered into a thousand pieces and hung, glowing, on the trees. The whites of things, of dresses and china cups and tablecloths, was dazzling.”
I admit there were times in the final third when I just wanted the story to get on with it, to find out where Lana had been for those four missing days. I became as mystified as Jen and could understand her distraction, her inability to judge the truth of what was happening around her as Healey loads on the mysteries. Did Lana return home with an invisible friend? Or a ghost? Jen reads speculation online that something mystical had happened to Lana; she was abducted by aliens, had taken the stairs down to Hell, or stepped into a time circle. This was coupled with my feeling of indulgence on the part of the author, that some short anecdotes were included because they were interesting rather than essential. And then comes a wonderful snippy sentence that brings you back to the heart of everything; for example, when Jen is driving north, “Well, if she cried enough, Jen thought, at least she might not need to wee again for another forty miles.”
An interesting read. A study of the parental difficulties caring for a troubled teenager, where the line stands between caring and invasion of privacy, of how and when to trust a troubled adolescent and when to step in. A veritable minefield. Lana has a history of cutting and an overdose attempt before the disappearance; post-disappearance, Jen alternates between anger and frustration, and treading on eggshells. The online stalking, the shadowing on the walk to school, the listening at the bedroom door, all reinforce the lesson that a snooper often finds something unexpected, something worse, something that should remain private until revealed. A reminder that often the most simple explanation is true.
An interesting read and competent second novel, but not a compelling page-turner like Healey’s wonderful debut Elizabeth is Missing.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

I found this book a bit overwhelming and couldn't finish it. The story was good but having dealt with teenagers like this it was a bit too close to home.

In her second novel Elizabeth is Missing author Emma Healey casts her forensic eye on a family dynamic put under strain.

Whistle in the Dark looks at a family reunited after a traumatic separation. They’re no longer able to function as they once did, perhaps understandably so, and especially for as long as the mystery of what happened in those missing days goes unresolved.

Getting to the bottom of things is a twisty, often tortuous task but something which Jen takes upon herself. While her husband Hugh favours an altogether more relaxed approach, Jen is dogged and extreme in some of the lengths to which she’ll go. These include stalking Lana on Instagram, overanalysing comments made, and even following her in real life.

I grudgingly admired her for her terrier-like attitude and refusal to give up trying to unearth what happened, while questioning Jen’s behaviour throughout the book, which is often desperate, sometimes verging on paranoid. She becomes obsessed, seemingly self-absorbed, and turns inward, analysing herself and her relationships with others along the way. To the extent where I wondered if it wasn’t Jen who was slowly losing her mind, and she who had more issues than her daughter.

While unpicking its own mystery, Whistle in the Dark explores anxiety and depression. It shows how these manifest themselves in the person suffering, as well as the effect on those closest to them. Jen’s attempts to solve the mystery and fix her daughter send her into a downward spiral of her own. And though Lana has issues even before she disappears, we now see how very isolated she is and how Jen grasps at tiny successes in her attempts to reach her daughter, those small moments of light in all the darkness.

Whistle in the Dark takes you into the fragmented, dark heart of a family, dealing with its demons behind closed doors. Here is the (real and imagined) fear and anxiety that comes with motherhood, the challenge of accepting you no longer have a child but a young adult in your house, of being that young adult with questions and few answers, and a family navigating its mental health issues.

This is a much darker novel than Emma Healey’s debut and one that’s less immediately engaging. Maud’s distinctive voice and her predicament captivated me far sooner in Elizabeth is Missing than Jen and Lana’s do here. It’s worth staying the course with this family though for when the payoff does come, it’s a revelatory experience. As the puzzle pieces slot into place in Whistle in the Dark, Emma Healey illuminates some dark corners of the mind with this sensitive portrayal of a family in crisis.

Oh, but this was a struggle to finish. I was so looking forward to it, a mother and daughter go on a painting holiday and the daughter vanishes. An exciting premise and the book starts well. However, it rambles and rambles and I found the prose difficult to follow and frankly irritating.

It does get there in the end and for me it wrapped things up quite well, it just felt too much like hard work to get there.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview this book.

The synopsis of the book drew me in and as a fan of mystery thrillers, I couldn’t wait to read this book but I just couldn’t get into this book, I tried to read a couple of chapters and it was confusing and I couldn’t get into the characters

This was painful. What had a great premis turned out to be a long and boring ramble. Not read a book for ages that was so dire.

Really enjoyed the previous book 'Elizabeth is missing' but this book was definitely missing something and I didn't enjoy so much. I didn't like any of the characters, found the daughter really really annoying, and the reason for the whole shenanigans, which was only revealed at the end, was daft.

I loved "Elizabeth is Missing" so was eagerly anticipating Healey's follow up. I wasn't disappointed.

In a world of ever more complicated plot twists, Healy presents us with a mystery novel where the mystery is set up on the first page, and satisfactorily solved at the end. The finely drawn mother/daughter pairing and sharp observation of modern familial relationships rang true for me.

I adored this book and cannot wait to read what Healy writes next.

Emma Healey is without doubt one of the best new voices in fiction. Elizabeth is Missing is one of my favourite books of all time and in this novel, Healey reminded me exactly why I fell in love with her writing in the first place. The prose is elegant and the story beautifully told.

A fantastic read. Thoroughly enjoyed this and it is not something I would usually pick up. Will look for more from this author in future.

What happened in those missing hours and days? That question runs throughout the story, does Lana even know herself? The story kept me entertained and eager to find out just what did happen on their trip.

I found this book rather disappointing and found myself skipping through whole unneeded paragraphs, shame because the basis of the story was good and could have been done fantastically.

An interesting enough premise. Fifteen-year-old Lana goes missing for four agonising days. She’s found, apparently unharmed, but refuses to talk about what happened to her. The police close the case but her mother Jen is determined to find out the truth. Her obsessive tracking down of clues – complicated by many red herrings – take up most of the book and unfortunately it all becomes tedious after a while. Lana is obviously a very troubled teenager but never a very sympathetic one, and her mother’s reaction, although understandable, again fails to elicit empathy, as she’s such an irritating and self-obsessed character. The novel rambles on to an unsatisfying conclusion, and although there is some good writing here, there’s a lot of repetition and extraneous detail and some strange non-sequiturs, and I ultimately rather lost interest. A disappointing follow-up to Elizabeth is Missing.

It is perhaps not surprising that a mother is agitated and traumatised when her 15 year old daughter is found after a four day absence, wandering, following an extensive search. The daughter professes not to know where she has been or whether anyone else was involved in her disappearance. We follow the subsequent relationship between Mother and Daughter with the former pressing for explanations and the latter, much like any teenager, resentful of this maternal pressure. Eventually there is a resolution of the mystery.
Many will enjoy reading this book but I am afraid it just was not for me.

Jen's youngest daughter Lana has been a concern, from her self-harming to her secrecy Jen isn't sure what else is going to happen. Then towards the end of a mother-daughter holiday Lana goes missing. When she is found five days later and covered in blood Jen fears the worst, particularly when Lana response to questioning is that she can't remember. This forces Jen to reassess herself as a parent and then to try to retrace Lana's footsteps to find the truth about the lost time.

I know that Healey is a well-respected author and whilst I did not read her first novel I jumped at the opportunity to read this. In many ways there is a lot to like about this book but I found Jen such a narcissistic character that I felt frustrated. The ending, whilst predictable, brought the story full circle but it didn't leave me wanting more.

I found this to be an intriguing read full of mystery, although it did fall a little flat for me on emotional impact throughout.

It's the story of how a family deal with a daughter who has gone missing for 4 days and then when she is found she refuses to tell them where she was, what happened... leaving them to let their imaginations run wild as to the horrors their daughter may have faced. It really explores the mother / daughter relationship well - no matter how much the mother tries to ease information out of Lana, her every attempt is seemingly thrown back in her face. And this leads to the mother going to extreme measures to try and find out any bits of information she can as to the events of those 4 days.

It was interesting to see how the rest of the family all dealt with this emotional trauma, and quite difficult to comprehend at times why the daughter was so reluctant to share any information and help the rest of her family come to terms with what happened.

I found it to be quite a slow paced read - the storyline just ambled along which did help to get a taste of how time can freeze at times of shocking events and allowed every thought that went through their minds helped build up more of the picture of the aftermath. But this did often feel like it was going nowhere and did feel a little suffocating - just like the events the family faced.

Overall it was an interesting read, if a little underwhelming at times.

This was an unexpectedly compelling thrill ride of a book.

The subject of our story is Lana who has been found after being missing for 4 days. Already a 15 year old daughter living through various challenges, she seems to have subtle yet obvious changes about her when she is found, despite her claim to have just gotten lost. The story is told through the voice of our main protagonist Jen, Lana's Mum, who is going on a journey akin to hell - her daughter is subdued, physically injured, and not telling her a single thing about those 4 days. As a Mum I could completely relate to her frustration and anguish. I could also relate to the fact that no crisis occurs in a bubble, there are always other things to deal with too. C'est la vie.

So our wonderful writer presents all things in bite sized chunks under witty and analogous headings which breaks it down easily for the reader. I particularly enjoyed this type of short chapter bursts which added to the sense of Jen's frustration and Lana's inability to deal with lengthy conversations or family situations.

So what did happen to Lana in those 4 days? The author takes us on a twisted, knotty journey that unravels the story of Jen, her relationships with her own mother, her friend, her eldest daughter, her husband, herself. What is Jen really searching for?

I found this to a unique perspective on a missing person; what happens when they come home. Utterly atmospheric, immersive and compelling, any reader will be hooked. Absolutely thought provoking, the writing style evoking the changes of emotions, and ultimately creating a very real story of a found 15 year old girl and what it does to the family, friends and the world of social media.

Themes: missing persons, found persons, religious cults, manipulation, coercion, family dynamics, self-harm, sibling rivalry, mother daughter relationships, social media

The author’s first book, Elizabeth is Missing, was beautiful and devastating so I couldn’t wait to read this. It was extremely compelling and I rnjoyed it, but I don’t think it will hang around in the back of my mind, ready to pop up at intervals, like Elizabeth is Missing does. More in my video review. http://www.betterthandreams.com/2018/05/april-2018/

I was slightly disappointed in this book. It started really well and kept you guessing all the way through and I definitely felt the need to finish it. I thought, however, that it was too long and, although all is made clear at the end, certain aspects of the parents behaviour didn't ring true.

Writing in reverse from finding a missing teenager asking why she went missing

Why write a novel when the plot starts where the missing person is found and there is heartfelt relief from teenager Lana Maddox’s parents. This is why the novel is so brilliant!

Lana’s parents, Jen and Hugh, are with her at her hospital bedside comforted that their daughter appears to be unharmed after going missing. But Lana cannot remember anything at all about being missing. Her mother, Jen, is concerned about this enough to try to piece together the days before and during her daughter’s disappearance. Jen is particularly mindful of the fact that before the disappearance, Lana had been a depressed teenager who inflicted wounds on herself. Jen questions whether Lana is actually without memory or lying about where she was.

If you have teenagers this novel will resonate with you and is well worth reading particularly to understand yourself as a parent with an inevitably troubled teenager. Jen disliked coming to terms with losing her little girl to the dreadful teenage years. Emma Healey goes deep into Jen’s mind and digs up crazy thoughts that most of us probably would not admit to. She takes us into Jen’s mind while trying to get to grips where her daughter was, who perhaps abducted her, what happened to her and how she could protect her in future.

Jen literally takes on the role of detective to uncover why and where her daughter went missing. While doing so she investigates her daughter’s crazy obsessions, her own and those of her two ‘suspects’. During her investigation, she also uncovers a lot about herself and Emma Healey brilliantly combines humour with some very dark spaces - in the mind as well as in reality.

It is superior, vivid and densely descriptive. This is a fascinating novel well worth reading.

BonnieK

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.