Just Another Missing Person – ✩✩
Just Another Missing Person is a mystery thriller that follows a missing persons case. Julia, the detective heading the search for missing 22 year old Olivia, is a straight edged detective who places a high value on her work, sometimes to her detriment. As the search begins to find Olivia, Julia is blackmailed into framing someone for the murder of the young girl, and although Julia would never put her career in harms way nor would she want to do anything that could derail the search to find Olivia, Julia has no choice but to follow the blackmailer’s orders.
Gillian McAllister is a phenomenal writer, especially when it comes to mystery and suspense. Her novel Wrong Place Wrong Time (2022) had some of the greatest twists and she has a great talent for telling stories unconventionally.
In this book, McAllister tells the story from three different perspectives: Julia’s, Lewis’, the father of the missing girl, and Emma’s, the mother of the individual being framed in Olivia’s case. McAllister also sprinkles in some of Olivia’s perspective by sharing some of her social media posts.
While I think this is an interesting way to tell her story, I think the switching of perspectives did a bit of a disservice to her story, making it unnecessarily confusing at times. Of course, all three of their perspectives converge to tie the story together, but I still believe that the shifts in perspective hindered rather than helped her story.
Although it was a great examination of the love a parent has for their child, I found the story dull at times and because we were essentially following three separate stories that ultimately came together as one later in the book, it felt like there were too many paths to follow to get to that final one and I found myself wishing I could just get to the end to see how it’s all resolved.
While I didn’t love this book, I will definitely continue reading McAllister’s book and look forward to her next release. This book just isn’t on my list of favorites.
Anchored Musings 