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Janes, Diane - 'Why Don't You Come For Me?'
Paperback: 320 pages (May 2011) Publisher: Robinson ISBN: 1849015961

Jo's baby daughter, Lauren, is abducted while they are on holiday. For years after, Jo is haunted by the loss and by the photos that arrive at regular intervals in the post. Jo has remarried after the death of her husband and has moved several times but still the photographs of her baby daughter arrive to torment her with the message "I still have her". The police and her new husband suspect either a hoaxer or even that Jo herself is sending them to keep the investigation alive. But Jo believes the messages are real and that her daughter is alive somewhere.

Jo's new life with Mark is complicated by the arrival of Mark's son to live with them. His is an angry teenager who wants his life to be as it was before the arrival of his mother's new baby - a usurper who has taken his place in her affections. Jo has to stay at home to care for Mark rather than travel with her husband in their tour business and starts to suspect their new partner, Melissa, of providing more than just business support to her husband.

I found the book disturbing. Party the content, since as you read you are witnessing Jo's growing paranoia and breakdown, but also because at the centre of the story is an abductor who torments the mother of the kidnapped child. I have always felt that one of the worse things for a parent to suffer is to lose a child and to never know what has happened to it. The continual thought that the child may still be alive somewhere and you can't find it must be unbearable.

An uncomfortable read but compelling.

Read another review of WHY DON'T YOU COME FOR ME?.

Susan White, England
September 2011

Details of the author's other books with links to reviews can be found on the Books page.
More European crime fiction reviews can be found on the Reviews page.



last updated 3/09/2011 14:47