Girl, Missing

“A fast-paced, twisting thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page" Paula Hawkins, International Bestselling author, The Girl on the Train.

What really happened to Sara-Jane?

It’s been fifteen years since Gem’s eight-year-old daughter Sara-Jane went missing, snatched with her best friend Abby right outside their school. A frantic search united the community at first, but after Abby was found and brought home, single mother Gem’s dogged persistence only led to accusations that she was stirring up class tensions. Even that she was somehow involved.

When Gem hears that human remains have been unearthed in the school’s chapel, she casts aside the new life she’s carefully built around herself and returns to the community that closed ranks against her all those years ago. Someone there knows something, she’s sure of it. And when Sara-Jane’s belongings start appearing on her doorstep, Gem knows she’s getting close—dangerously close—to the truth.

One thing’s for certain: it’s not just the remains in the chapel that have lain hidden for years. Can Gem unravel the dark secrets that might lead to Sara-Jane? Or has blind hope lured her into a web she’ll never escape?

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed Dreda an MBE in her New Year’s Honours List, 2020.

She scooped the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger (New Blood) Award for best first-time crime novel in 2005, the first time a Black British author has received this honour.

Ryan and Dreda write across the crime and mystery genre―psychological thrillers, gritty gangland crime and fast-paced action books. Spare Room, their first psychological thriller, was a #1 UK and US Amazon Bestseller.

Dreda is a passionate campaigner and speaker on social issues and the arts. She has appeared on television, including Celebrity Pointless, Celebrity Eggheads, Alan Carr’s Adventures with Agatha Christie, BBC Breakfast, Sunday Morning Live, Newsnight, The Review Show and Front Row Late on BBC2. Ryan and Dreda performed a specially commissioned monologue for the ground-breaking Sky Arts’ Art 50 on Sky TV.

Dreda is one of twelve international bestselling women writers who have written a reimagined Miss Marple short story for the thrilling bestselling anthology Marple. She talked about this on The Queen Consort’s Royal Reading Room.

Dreda has been a guest on many radio shows and presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship books programme, Open Book. She has written in a number of leading newspapers including the Guardian and was thrilled to be named one of Britain’s 50 Remarkable Women by Lady Geek in association with Nokia. She is a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and an ambassador for The Reading Agency.

Some of Dreda and Ryan’s books are currently in development as TV and film adaptations.

Dreda’s parents are from the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada. Her name, Dreda, is Irish and pronounced with a long vowel ee sound in the middle.