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    The Missing Hours
    The Missing Hours
    The Missing Hours
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Missing Hours

    Written by Emma Kavanagh

    Narrated by Jenny Funnell and Leighton Pugh

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    "Murderers are rarely who you imagine them to be . . . " One moment, Selena Cole is at the playground with her children . . . the next, she has vanished without a trace. The body of Dominic Newell, a well-respected lawyer, is found on a remote mountain road, blood oozing from the stab wound in his neck. In the sleepy borderland between England and Wales, sheep outnumber people and serious crimes are rare. Which makes this Tuesday morning, with two calls coming in to the local police station, even more remarkable. Detective Constable Leah Mackay and her brother, Detective Sergeant Finn Hale, begin their respective investigations, but soon find them inextricably linked. And when Selena is found alive and unhurt twenty hours later, the mystery deepens. Selena's work consulting on kidnap and ransom cases has brought her into close contact with ruthless criminals and international drug lords. But now, as Selena walks back into her life wearing a blood-spattered sweater, claiming no memory of the preceding hours, Leah can't be sure if she is a victim, a liar, or a murder suspect. Leah and Finn delve into each case, untangling the secrets and betrayals-large and small-that can lie just beneath the surface of a life, yet unprepared for where both trails will lead. With engrossing characters, devilish twists, and evocative prose, The Missing Hours is that rare page-turner-as satisfying and complex as it is unpredictable.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateNov 2, 2018
    ISBN9781980026532
    Author

    Emma Kavanagh

    Emma Kavanagh was born and raised in South Wales. After graduating with a PhD in Psychology from Cardiff University, she spent many years working as a police and military psychologist, training firearms officers, command staff and military personnel throughout the UK and Europe. She started her business as a psychology consultant, specializing in human performance in extreme situations. She lives in South Wales with her husband and young son.

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    Reviews for The Missing Hours

    3.5/5

    31 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      4.5 stars.

      The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh is a clever police procedural about two perplexing mysteries that occur simultaneously yet appear unconnected.

      Detective Constable Leah Mackay is assigned to the missing persons case involving Dr. Selena Cole who disappeared without a trace from the playground where her two daughters are playing.  Serena's sister-in-law Orla Britten has no idea where she could be but she is quite concerned since Selena has been grief-stricken since the tragic death of her husband Cole.  With scant clues to follow, Leah is concerned about the future of the case when local defense solicitor Dominic Newell's murder investigation takes precedence.

      Leah's brother, newly promoted Detective Sergeant Finn Hale is leading the Dominic's murder enquiry. Newell has been stabbed to death and all personnel are needed for the investigation.  Finn heads to the victim's law practice where he is surprised to learn Dominic and his law partner, Bronwyn Hartley, were once romantically involved although they are now just friends. Finn then questions Dominic's boyfriend, Isaac Fletcher, but the grieving man does not set off any alarms. The next line of inquiry leads to one of the victim's clients, Beck Chambers, who quickly becomes their chief suspect once Finn learns more of Beck's run-ins with the law.

      Just as Leah turns her attention to Dominic's case, Selena is found unharmed, yet, inexplicably, she has no memory of what happened during her disappearance. Despite Selena's safe return, Leah's curiosity about what happened to her nags at her.  After she and Finn discover that a suspect has ties to both Selena and Dominic, Leah can no longer ignore her conviction that the two  cases somehow linked.  Leah is also certain that Selena is not being completely honest with her but trying to figure out the reason for her deception is virtually impossible.

      Finn is putting in long hours as he investigates Dominic's murder but he is frustrated by his dearth of viable leads or suspects. He is skeptical of Leah's assertion that Selena's disappearance and Dominic's murder are somehow linked, but he nonetheless joins her as she follows each piece of evidence she unearths.  Certain they are on the right path, Leah and Finn painstakingly put together their disparate pieces of evidence but will they figure out the truth before it is too late?

      With the chapters alternating between Leah and Finns perspectives and interspersed with case studies of Selena and her husband's kidnap and rescue cases,  The Missing Hours is an incredibly intriguing mystery that is multi-layered and complex. Both Leah and Finn have excellent instincts yet they each find they let their own personal situations cloud their judgment at different times during the investigation. The plot is quite unique with the shadowy world of kidnap and rescue figuring prominently throughout the unfolding story.  With unexpected twists and exciting turns, Emma Kavanagh brings the novel to a shocking and somewhat dramatic conclusion that completely wraps up both of these baffling mysteries.
    • 4/5
      This is a mystery/thriller and a police procedural rolled into one. I really enjoyed this book and could not wait to find out how this all linked together.

      Dr. Selena Cole disappears from a playground one day while watching her two children. DC Leah McKay is called in to check it out. Before she is able to solve the mystery, Selena is found wandering on the river bank with now memories of where she had been or what she had done. In a parallel investigation, Leah's brother DI Finn Hale is investigating the death of a local solicitor.

      I was a bit confused at the beginning of this book trying to figure out how all this fit together. There were also case files from the business that Selena and her husband Ed Cole started. It was a company that negotiated kidnap for ransom releases as well as teach companies how to protect themselves. The number one suspect in the death of the solicitor was a previous employee and friend of Ed Cole. Ed died in a bombing in Brazil the previous year and his brother-in-law, who now runs the company fired Beck. Leah can not let go of the suspicion that the disappearance of Dr. Cole and the death of the solicitor are linked.

      This was a twisting and turning plot with different chapters being told from various perspectives of the characters in the book. A great read.

      Thanks to Netgalley and Cornerstone Digital for the opportunity to read and review this book. This is my unbiased review.
    • 2/5
      I expected a tense, suspenseful story, but what I got instead was more of a drama-filled police procedural. It all had a bit of a soap opera feel, actually. The opening scene is written from seven-year-old Heather's perspective, as she realizes her mother is missing. This short scene sets up what feels like a powerful story to come. Heather doesn't have another narrating part in the story, at least not that I remember. Most of the narration alternates between the brother and sister cops, both written in first person. I didn't much like either character. Leah is wrapped up in personal drama. She may or may not still love her husband, and she feels inadequate as a mother. We spend a lot of time in her head as she wallows in these issues, but we don't see much interaction with her husband and I don't think there were any scenes with her children. Finn, Leah's brother, is newly promoted. He also feels inadequate, though his worries are with his job performance. He pretends to have it all together but constantly worries that he can't take the pressure. Honestly, these two characters were largely interchangeable. Toward the end of the book, a few other characters are given short narrating parts, all in third person. Interspersed through the entire book we also have short pieces that are either excerpts from published articles or documents from Selena's business files. Eventually we find that most of these pertain in some way to the outcome of the story. All of this, for me, gave the story a jumbled feel. I thought the shared documents slowed the pace and felt impersonal. The plot begins with two cases that initially seem unrelated, though Leah's intuition tells her otherwise. I found Selena's situation intriguing, and I was mostly invested in learning more about that case. Her character was the only thing that kept me reading. I could easily have done without all the pity party nonsense from the two cops. In the end, the twists didn't surprise me, perhaps because everything unfolded so slowly, with many hints along the way. For me, the story would have been far more compelling had Selena's narration been more of a focus, with less wallowing in adequacy from the cops. As a side note, I received an advance copy from the publisher via Amazon Vine. I didn't realize that this is a re-release with a different publisher. That made no difference in my review. I'm just pointing it out for readers who might notice reviews for this book from a couple of years ago. I don't know if there are any changes, significant or otherwise, in this second release.
    • 4/5
      Selena Cole disappears, leaving her seven and three year old children alone in a park. She is found the next day, but claims to have no memory of what happened to her. The police are too busy to pursue this any further as a local solicitor is found dead beside a remote road. Gradually it becomes clear that the two cases are linked.Selena and her deceased husband set up a company dealing with kidnap and rescue demands, operating in countries like Columbia, and the narrative is interspersed with (very interesting) case studies describing their work and rescue negotiations. The other narrative strands are told mostly from the viewpoints of Finn (the DS) and his sister Leah (a DC) and their voices are confusingly indistinguishable from one another, unless Leah is taking a moment to muse on her twin daughters or agonize about her marriage. Generally, this was an enjoyable read, although it could perhaps have been a little pacier. I found Finn and Leah's diffidence about their competence wearing; I do prefer to read about people who are confident/good at their job. The idea that the police would let Selena's reappearance bring an end to that investigation, in a sort of "all's well that ends well" way, struck me as extremely unlikely; two small children were left/abandoned in a park - at the very least surely social services would have been involved. What is to say it wouldn't happen again?The "big reveal" was something I had worked out for myself - I'm not sure how, maybe the author planted well-placed clues. SPOILER I wondered why it did not occur to Leah to find out who collected the remaining 40,000 GBP from the bank.
    • 3/5
      An unlikely story of a woman's disappearance then appearance.Not sure I followed it too well.I'll re read later and see if I can make more sense of it.I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Random House via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to enjoy this book more than i did to be honest i enjoy a crime read, i had heard about it via twitter and it had some great reviews... I found it a bit hard going to be honest all the K&R stories distracted me and made me lose the thread of what was going on i also had to really concentrate on which ds or di was telling the story.I liked the book but i have read much better.
    • 5/5
      This is the story of Selena Cole, who goes missing, leaving her two young children in the play park near their home. The book is mainly written in the first person, narrated by a number of characters - the police detectives leading the case, Selena herself, Orla and Seth who work with Selena and even Fae, the solicitor's administrator/secretary. However the story also includes a number of case files from the 'kidnap and ransom' business that Selena used to run with her husband. The mystery of Selena's disappearance and return is gradually unpicked, alongside the seemingly unconnected murder of a local solicitor. Reading this book is a bit like immersing yourself in a very good 'whodunnit' but I was wrong with every guess. The quote on the cover says 'finding her was only the beginning' and that sums up the book exactly! As a reader, you are thrown into the story very quickly. There are twists and turns and lots of characters and details, but it is not difficult to keep up. Even the case files, which seem initially to be only there to give insight to Selena's previous work, turn out to have a much greater relevance in the end. I loved it and will definitely read other books by this author.Thank you to Netgalley for providing the review copy of this novel.