the darkest lies by Barbara Copperthwaite

This is my second read of a child going missing in about two weeks. Its a bit nightmarish.
There is no parent who hasn't done what Melanie Oak did. Just a few metres away from a friends house, her daughter Beth insisted that she can walk alone. Despite a few misgivings Melanie gives in to what would be her dismay and anger with herself for life.

Thinking that Beth is at her friend's house Melanie and her husband have a quiet evening. Jacob goes out to meet a friend to share a spiff and they relax at home. The next day Melanie rings the neighbour to find out what time Beth will return to find out that Beth never turned up. This starts the spiral into the actual story of what went wrong.

Beth was hiding secrets. She was a perfectly normal teenager who had a good relationship with her parents, her teachers, her friends in school. She just was a teenager and she had secrets that she did not want others knowing. Unraveling the last few hours of her life, unraveled an entire village's secrets and this lots of people did not want done. It led to very ugly incidents and it also led to Melanie feeling so very alone. She felt that her husband, the police, the neighbours were all embarrassed by her violent feelings about the slowness and apathy of the investigation and that she had to take it upon herself to uncover what she felt was suspicions about the various villagers. Some of her suppositions did have a valid base, some were baseless but she did put a lot of people's backs up as a result, including that of her husband in the process.

This was an emotional read. You felt for the hopelessness of Melanie. What would one do in such similar circumstances. It also makes one think that we never actually know what teenagers get upto! we should not kid ourselves that we do.

This book was sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of Bookouture.