Just Another Missing Person" attempts to blend elements of both a thriller and a police procedural, but ultimately falls into the realm of mediocrity. The plot, unfortunately, tends to be repetitive and marred by unrealistic elements, leaving numerous plot holes in its wake. Regrettably, my engagement waned to the point where I found myself skimming through the final chapters, unable to sustain interest.

Queen of the "what would you do thriller", I automatically know that I'm going to love any new book by Gillian, but I honestly think her writing just gets better and better.

This is another beautifully written crime thriller, but like all Gillian's books, it's just a bit different. Part way through the book, she throws in such a curve ball that you almost can't believe what you're reading.

The story is about Julia Day, a DCI, a wife, a mother who one night, while investigating the disappearance of a young woman, suddenly finds her life upended and everything she believes in and stands for is put to the test in the most extraordinary way.

These are characters that spring to life from the page, you care intensely about them, despite their flaws and Gillian does this so cleverly every time. Not only is the plot complex and gripping, her writing style is exquisite and seamless.

The final twist was also totally unexpected and took my breath away. Another exceptional book from Ms McAllister and one that comes from me with the highest recommendation.

Thanks to author Gillian McAllister, publishers Michael Joseph Penguin Random House and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book has such a good set up - a girl has gone missing and the CCTV shows her walking into an alleyway and not coming out but this alley is a dead end and there is nowhere at all that she could have gone. I was so intrigued and keen to find out what on earth had happened here. We then follow the detective on this case and she is quickly threatened by a mystery man and is told that under no circumstances that can she solve this case. Julia has always played by the book so she is in turmoil about this but knows she has to protect her own family. This is such a cat and mouse read with multiple strands to it. I found it gripping and I enjoyed it.

I really wanted to love this book, and it was an enjoyable enough read - but after Wrong Place Wrong Time, one of my favourite books of last year, it had a lot to live up to and it didn’t hit the mark for me in the same way.

Ultimately disappointed and it feels slightly unfair of me given that much of my feeling is based on a comparison and high expectations rather than the merits of the book itself.

Another great book from Gillian McAllister. Lots of twists to keep you guessing along the way from start to finish. A little frustrating at times regarding the lengths the main character would go to, but that’s the whole point of the story.

I was completely blown away by Wrong Place Wrong Time so I was very excited, but also a little apprehensive about reading Just Another Missing Person - would it live up to Wrong Place Wrong Time? Guys the answer is yes!! They are two very different books but with a common theme running through of what would you do to protect your child?

DCI Julia Day has been tasked with solving the strange disappearance of Olivia, who was last seen on CCTV footage walking into a dead end alleyway and never materialising back out. Before the case can even get off the ground, Julia is confronted by demons from her past, and the consequences of choosing to protect her daughter over abiding by the law come back to haunt her. The case and her personal life become entangled in a very messy way, as she finds herself blackmailed into planting evidence in order to secure a conviction - of a person who she is not even sure is guilty. But it’s this or her daughter’s freedom, and for Julia, there’s no question of which one she is choosing.

The narrative takes form in multiple POVs that are carefully sequenced to give maximum impact when the shocking twists are revealed - and these are aplenty! Once the first twist hits, they just keep on coming and there’s no escaping them. The execution of the story is incredibly clever, and some of the twists knocked me sideways - I did not see them coming at all! Gillian McAllister has such a gift of being able to captivate readers with cleverly plotted, gripping storylines that bend the mind of the reader in the best way. I was kept on my toes the whole way through and there was absolutely no let up in suspense. Julia and the supporting cast of characters were the icing on the cake to this incredible plot, I loved spending my day with them and I have an extra special soft spot for Price…despite his criminal ways, he did have a very big heart!

A compelling read - I highly recommend it!

After thoroughly enjoying Wrong Place Wrong Time I really struggled with this book and wanted to like it far more than I did. I am feeling I was perhaps in the wrong frame of mind when I read this one, so I want to re-read and post a fairer review to my blog once I've done so.
I hope this is acceptable with the publishing team, I will contact you with a link once I'm done. I didn't want you to think I had not read this one after being so kindly offered it, but I feel a re-read will do it more justice as I kind of lost track of where I was with the story.

Just Another Missing Person is an incredibly strong follow up to Wrong Place Wrong Time. It’s filled with twisty goodness that only a McAllister novel can bring, a plot to completely lose yourself in as well as a handful of characters to obsess over. I completely fell in love with Julia; a mother, a hard-working detective who will do anything to protect those she cares about. The story had me constantly guessing, questioning everything and leaving me unsure of who I could trust. I couldn’t get enough! This author truly gets better and better with each book. Intense, unnerving and perfectly paced. I loved it – please pick it up!

Another very good novel by Gillian McAllister, her last novel was brilliant, and this one is very different, but gripping. The characters and scenario were believable and there was lots of twists and turns. Recommended.

Gillian McAllister is an auto-read author for me and her latest book confirms this. A thriller with a twist - in this read we meet DCI Julia Day investigating a missing person case. Her complicated past intertwines with her investigation and leaves her with impossible decisions. I always find McAllister has a very clever, descriptive way of writing and her portrayal of the love of a parent for their child and questions of morality challenged the reader to debate what they would have done in the situations faced. Many thanks to Netgalley and Michael Joseph, Gillian McAllister and Penguin Random House for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

She’s down it again 😂 From the first chapter's eerie atmosphere to the last shocking page, this thriller keeps you guessing right until the end. The woman’s a genius

You know you're going to have a great time with a GA novel. This is no exception and if you think her last one was good this is just wonderful. TWISTY is not the word. A lot of red herrings and turns makes this a fun character led novel. Mum and daughter relationships and so much more explored.

I’m a big fan of Gillian’s work but I struggled with this one which is probably my fault as I find complex plots and characters rather difficult to stick to nowadays. The first half needs mega concentration and I nearly gave up a few times but ultimately I still needed to know what was going on so kept at it. Not my favourite but worth sticking with.

I’m finding it really hard to review this book. On the one hand, it has the making of a perfect read, but on the other, I felt a tad deflated. It isn’t my favourite of Gillian’s and I can’t explain why, which makes me feel sad. JAMP has received a lot of hype so I am giving it 4 stars and I will be reading every book Gillian writes in the future. I just preferred some of Gillian’s other reads, plus she does set her bar high.

Exciting, twisty, turny plot with most unexpected results! You read some pages not understanding what's going on at first, then the explanation hits you. A woman goes missing, last seen on CCTV entering a passageway from which there is no exit. A DCI keeps a terrible secret and is therefore vulnerable to corruption. Familial love and loyalty is a recurring theme - Julia's love for her daughter Genevieve; Lewis' love for his daughter Sadie and Emma's love for her son, Matthew.
Corruption, blackmail, missing women, a suspected boyfriend, a loyal informer and a brokenhearted father are some of the themes and characters for a very clever, quite intricate plot, (I had to make a few notes along the way, lol!) Loved it. One part felt a bit too convenient, (about Patricia the Prosecutor near the end); but in the scheme of things I loved it for the story. Great entertainment.

Gillian McAllister has done it again, Her books just keep getting better and better (if that’s even possible, as they are all brilliant!) Gillian is one of my favourite authors and I have read all of her previous books. I was delighted to get my hands on an advanced copy of this and I was not disappointed. I finished this book in two sittings. It is quite a complex book and you really have to pay attention as there are multiple POV and lots of twists and turns as usual. I absolutely loved this book and I’m recommending it to everyone I know!

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

“Julia Day. It is now your job to convict Matthew James for the murder of Olivia Johnson. Enclosed are your forensics to plant. They contain his DNA. He resides at 1 Glasgow Place, Portishead.”

Just Another Missing Person is a clever, emotionally charged thriller from Gillian McAllister.

DCI Julia Day is placed in an impossible situation after 22 year old Olivia Johnson goes missing. On her way home, with the investigation barely begun, a balaclava clad man hidden in the back seat of her car makes himself known. He directs Julia to drive to Olivia’s address and then hands her a small metal box, along with a threat - if Julia fails to do as he demands, he will reveal the secret that protects the future of her fifteen year old daughter.

Unfolding from the perspectives of Julia; Lewis, a father desperate to find his missing daughter, and; Emma, a single mother worried about her son as much for him, Just Another Missing Person is a complex mystery in which the line separating victim from criminal often blurs. The actions of McAllister’s characters pose provocative questions about what lengths a person will go to in order to protect someone they love, and especially what a parent will sacrifice for their child.

Though it’s obvious something is off about the missing person case from the moment it’s revealed that CCTV footage shows Olivia turning into a blind alley and never exiting, I truly didn’t expect the direction it took. McAllister employs skilfully planned misdirects that obscures clues which only in retrospect seem obvious. The narrative, which honestly I found a little disjointed to begin with, really hits its stride at the halfway point of the book when the first of several shocking twists are revealed. From that moment on, I couldn’t put the book down, utterly enthralled in, and admiring of, the ingenuity of the plot.

With a set up that definitely pays off, Just Another Missing Person is a thriller with a stunning and satisfying conclusion you won’t want to miss.

What a book, I absolutely love anything written by Gillian McAllister and this did not disappoint. The twists kept coming, I did not guess what the ending would be here! What a thriller. I’ve recommended this book to everyone I’ve spoken too since finishing. Read this book!

It's impressive. But I wanted it to achieve the impossible

Last summer - which, by and large, was considerably warmer and more pleasant than it has been in the UK this year - I spent an evening watching the band Keane play outdoors on Cannock Chase. A simple description of the venue would be: a field in the middle of a forest. A more atmospheric, but equally accurate one would be: an oasis of beauty and tranquility, that leaves you with the feeling of being isolated from everything except Tom Chaplin's smooth, rich and powerful vocals. It wasn't a rousing night - that's not the band's musical nature - but, with the added help of a chilled bottle of wine that tasted better with every mouthful, it felt like the ultimate in relaxation. I didn't want it to end.

But when I say it was relaxing ... there was one moment. At the first note of Somewhere Only We Know, the entire crowd seemed to rise to its feet and as one, turn on the torches on their phones and sing along to every single word. There's a video of that performance somewhere on YouTube, and it's worth seeking it out.

It got me thinking, though: that was their debut single, released as long ago as 2004. And whilst it has been followed by five studio albums, two live albums, ten EPs, 28 singles and a greatest hits compilation - proof, if proof were needed that the band are anything but a one-hit wonder - it seemed that none of their other songs have had quite the same impact as their first one.

I can't help feeling that that must be a little bit galling. No matter what you record and no matter how well it sells, the world as a whole just doesn't seem to love it quite as much as that one song from all those years ago. There must surely be that moment now and again when the band members sit down and wonder "how the hell do we follow that"?

The link between the song Somewhere Only We Know and the book Wrong Place, Wrong Time is a tenuous one at best, because the latter is Gillian McAllister's eighth novel. My point though is that that book is sen-bleeding-sational. It was deservedly awarded the Sunday Times Thriller of the Year and how it failed to also win the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year Award is beyond me. I can only assume that the two books that beat it - The Botanist by M W Craven and The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths - are something out of this world.

But the richly-deserved success of Wrong Place, Wrong Time gave Gillian McAllister a problem. She had less than a year to write another book that would live up to it. And just to turn her already unenviable task into something completely impossible, she had to do so after having just given birth to her first child. The fact that she managed to write a book at all under those circumstances is impressive. That she managed to write one as good as Just Another Missing Person is really astonishing. And yet, for all that, it's still not quite as good as Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Which, even though it's hardly suprising that it hasn't achieved the impossible, still somehow left me feeling a little bit - not disappointed, that's far too strong a word, but maybe, oh I don't know, a little bit ... a little bit flat.

Here's the issue. On the one hand, Just Another Missing Person is very, very clever. Starting with multiple and seemingly unconnected narratives from multiple and seemingly unconnected characters, each of the storylines develops and, via a whole series of wonderful and totally unforeseen twists, come together fantastically in a way that leaves everything making sense. Gillian McAllister really is a master of the plot, and I can do nothing except sit and watch in awe.

But on the other hand ... and that's part of the problem right there. In Wrong Place, Wrong Time there was no 'other hand'. Everything, down to the finest detail, was amazing. But here, there are a couple of problems. Firstly, that plot. Yes, it is clever and yes, it does come together perfectly but, blimey, it's complicated. With so many characters - and I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that several of them turn out not to be who you think thought they were at all - it gets quite hard to follow. Several times I had to pause, check who was narrating a particular chapter and remind myself who on earth they were. But because I had to do that, it prevented me from staying rivited to the story and compelled to keep reading chapter after chapter after chapter.

And secondly, there's the moral dilemma. Like all of Gillian's books that I've read, it asks a series of 'what would you do' questions as the story progresses. But the books that work best for me - most obviously the aforementioned Wrong Place, Wrong Time but also How to Disappear - are those where I absolutely agreed with the decisions that the characters made. Yes, on paper there was a choice but it felt as though there was no choice at all. Here, though, that wasn't the case. I don't know what I'd do if faced with the decision that DCI Julia Day had to make, but I'd like to think that I wouldn't have done what she did. I actually thought that her character was a bit weak. And that's a problem because it means that I just can't connect with her, or support her in the same way.

It's this point that brings me to a summary of not only Just Another Missing Person, but all of this author's books that I've read so far. It's only taken me four books to work it out. If you agree with the main character's decision making, there's every chance that the book will leave you feeling absolutely wowed. But if you don't, that will probably be enough to stop you from becoming sufficiently absorbed in the book to be blown away afterwards. Even though you can still admire it for being really, really good.

And on that note ... I've just realised that three of my last four reviews of Gillian McAllister books include a music analogy. That's not something that's common to all of my reviews of other books, so I wonder if it's something about how she writes that makes me think that way? But I'll try and be more original next time. It's got to be easier than writing something that lives up to Wrong Place, Wrong Time after all.

My thanks to the author, Netgalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for the digital ARC of this book, which was published in the UK on 3rd August. I will post my review on Goodreads, Amazon and my social media pages.

Julia is addicted to her job as a police detective. Her devotion to it and her family are at odds when her husband complains that he never sees her.
When Olivia goes missing it is down to Julia to solve the mystery of her disappearance.
This is deep and dark.
A brilliant read!
Thanks to #NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review