Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister
Published by HarperCollins Publishers on August 1, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Crime
Pages: 496

Twenty-two-year-old Olivia has been missing for one day...and counting. She was last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley. And not coming back out again.

Julia, the detective heading up the search for Olivia, thinks she knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her husband and daughter. But she has no idea just how close to home this case is going to get.

Because the criminal at the heart of the disappearance has something she never expected. His weapon isn't a gun, or a knife: it's a secret. Her worst one. And her family's safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia - and must frame somebody else for her murder.

If you find her, you will lose everything. What would you do?

This clever and endlessly surprising thriller is laced with a clever look at family and motherhood, and cements Gillian McAllister as a major talent in the world of suspense and a master of creating ethical dilemmas that show just how murky the distinction between right and wrong can be.

I read and loved this author’s previous book, Wrong Place Wrong Time, and so I jumped at the chance to request Just Another Missing Person when it was put up on Netgalley. Gillian McAllister clearly has a talent for plotting and introducing mind bending twists. Because I didn’t bother to read the synopsis for this one before jumping into it (out of excitement!), I didn’t really know what to expect. I wasn’t sure if it would have similar speculative elements to Wrong Place Wrong Time or if it would just be a flat out thriller. Just Another Missing Person is the latter, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Just Another Missing Person has a very slow start. It took me about 50% of the book to start caring about any of the characters because it just dragged. Admittedly, once the twists start happening the novel picks up and heads in several different directions, and so I flew through the last half of the book. It’s just such a shame that it took me forever to get into it in the first place, because I was so excited for it!

I think reading Just Another Missing Person will be a whole new experience upon a reread. There are definitely things that you can pick out from the first 50% that lead up to the twists in the latter half of the book, and I think it would be very interesting to go back and reread now that I know the twists. I’m going to have to wait for the paperback release for that!

I always seem to enjoy the way McAllister tackles family relationships, particularly marriage and mother-child relationships. I was a bit shocked when I read the acknowledgements and found that she doesn’t have children herself yet, because the way she handles these relationships seems to speak to her own experiences. Maybe she’s just very empathetic!

Overall, I really enjoyed Just Another Missing Person. Particularly the last half and all the juicy plot twists and drama. It’s not as strong of a plot as Wrong Place Wrong Time but I found this one to be very clever and I was in awe of the twists in some places.