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Thriller set in NORWAY and the FRENCH PYRENÉES

5th October 2020

Playdate by Alex Dahl, thriller set in Norway and the French Pyrénées.

Thriller set in NORWAY and the FRENCH PYRÉNÉES

A well crafted and tense opening leads the reader into the dark world of child abduction. Elisa is at school to pick up her young daughter, Lucia, who expresses a keen interest to go on a playdate with a new arrival at the school.  The school environment feels safe, so why not entrust your child to a complete stranger! Then! The request comes through for Lucia to stay the night. Well, okaaaaay; and that is the last time Elisa and her husband, Frederik, hear from their daughter.

The next day the house, where Lucia was overnighting, is being cleaned after the last AirBnB rental. There is no sign of Lucia, nor of the family with whom she stayed. They have all disappeared off the face of the earth. The panic is beginning to rise out of control.

We know fairly early on what might have happened to Lucia but her family remains in the dark.

Frederik, meanwhile, has been having an indiscretion, an on-line dalliance. His paramour suddenly closes contact down with chilling words. The police, however, rule her out and concentrate on other areas. Why have Frederik and Elisa’s little family been chosen for a child abduction? Could Eastern European gangs be involved? The trail seems to go cold.

18 months down the line and Lucia is still missing. Help is possibly at hand with the cunning acuity of an investigative reporter, Selma, who has a nose for where the truth lies. She descends on the story and picks it apart like a dog with a bone. There are secrets, twists and turns aplenty, and a variety of escapades all lie ahead for the reader of this novel.

I have enjoyed both previous novels by Alex Dahl – The Boy At The Door and The Heart Keeper. In this novel the author takes her readers back, in part, to the familiar town of Sandefjord, first used in The Boy At The Door. This novel has a very interesting premise because the disappearance of a child always makes headline news. It gets people talking and formulating their own, often daft and insensitive hypotheses (just look at the case of Madeleine McCann). I felt that a surfeit of props and viewpoints was used to propel the story along, which made the progression at times overly busy and convoluted.  It didn’t quite seem to have the skilled, light touch that the previous two novels had – the author’s usual, sharp storytelling was, however, evident as the book opened, and got me hooked until it plateaued. I was keen to see how the story panned out and concluded.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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