Scan barcode
harvio's review against another edition
4.0
- from the Observer: "An enthralling tale of a little girl lost, wrapped in a portrait of an ageing community over two decades."
sclinch915's review
3.0
Not bad. I'm glad the mystery was resolved. I didn't like the musings of the anonymous characters in the second half of the book. I'm not sure where they were coming from.
bevin1279's review against another edition
5.0
A dark & haunting ghost story with a twist. Loved the characters, especially Kate, & how they were all connected. O'Flynn's prose is gorgeous, seamless, effortless -- an intense pleasure to read.
treaclewaffle's review against another edition
2.0
In the beginning it's hard to find a link between the different stories and characters, but I think that's what keeps you reading. Every character is special and has a quite interesting way of thinking. There seems to be something sad (and realistic) about every person in and around Green Oaks. Nobody seems to be "normal".
saidtheraina's review against another edition
3.0
Girl detective with monkey friend. Mall cop and record store employee. Snarky, English, and fun suburban fable.
facelikefizz's review against another edition
4.0
An unusual book. The first part is set in Birmingham in 1984 and describes Kate, a 10 year old amateur detective, who goes missing and is never found.
Kate especially likes to spend time in the new huge shopping centre that has been built near her home and this is where she undertakes most of her "surveillance". She is convinced someone is going to try and rob Lloyds Bank so spends her free time watching for anyone who could be "casing the joint" and making notes on suspicious looking characters. Her notes are so innocent and often laugh out loud funny. Kate is an adorable character and I could happily have read a whole book just about her adventures.
The second part of the book jumps ahead to 2003 and the tone is very different. Much more depressing, but still funny in some parts. We discover what happened to Kate through characters that work in the shopping centre and still remember her.
It's a short book but well written (especially Kate's part) and I finished it in a day and a half. I especially liked all the references to 1980s Britain - as someone who was also 10 in 1984 it brought back fond memories of Opal Fruits and penny sweets!
Kate especially likes to spend time in the new huge shopping centre that has been built near her home and this is where she undertakes most of her "surveillance". She is convinced someone is going to try and rob Lloyds Bank so spends her free time watching for anyone who could be "casing the joint" and making notes on suspicious looking characters. Her notes are so innocent and often laugh out loud funny. Kate is an adorable character and I could happily have read a whole book just about her adventures.
The second part of the book jumps ahead to 2003 and the tone is very different. Much more depressing, but still funny in some parts. We discover what happened to Kate through characters that work in the shopping centre and still remember her.
It's a short book but well written (especially Kate's part) and I finished it in a day and a half. I especially liked all the references to 1980s Britain - as someone who was also 10 in 1984 it brought back fond memories of Opal Fruits and penny sweets!
mrsfligs's review against another edition
5.0
1984, Birmingham, England. Kate Meaney is the sole proprietor and lead detective for Falcon Investigations (assisted by her top secret assistant Mickey the Monkey, a stuffed animal). If Falcon Investigations had an advertisement, it would read something like this:
FALCON INVESTIGATIONS
Clues found. Suspects trailed. Crimes detected.
Visit our office equipped with the latest surveillance equipment.
Being only 10 years old and with limited transportation, Kate performs the majority of her detective work at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping center. Virtually ignored by her grandmother (her mother abandoned her when she was small and her beloved father died of a stroke not too long ago), Kate is free to spend hours trailing suspects at Green Oaks and observing the goings on in her neighborhood. One of her few friends is Adrian, the older son of a local shopkeeper and one of the few grown-ups who take Kate seriously. At school, Kate keeps mostly to herself until she befriends Teresa, a new girl who doesn't always do things by the rules either. Unfortunately, this fledgling friendship and Falcon Investigations comes to an abrupt end when Kate disappears without a trace.
Fast forward 20 years and we meet Kurt, a security guard at Green Oaks shopping center. Lonely and adrift in life, Kurt is startled to see a young girl appear on the mall's surveillance cameras after-hours. Yet no trace of the girl is found; she seems to be a figment of Kurt's imagination. Kurt is haunted by the girl and ends up teaming up with Lisa, the assistant manager of the record store in the mall, to figure out who the girl is and what happened to her.
Like Kurt, Lisa is also lonely (despite being in a relationship) and stuck in her life. She is haunted by the disappearance of her brother Adrian, who was suspected of being involved in Kate's disappearance years before and fled home to avoid media scrutiny. Realizing that the girl on the video may be Kate, Lisa teams up with Kurt to conduct their own after-hours investigation in Green Oaks—hoping to solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance and remove the cloud of suspicion from Adrian. Along the way, Lisa and Kurt begin to forge a fragile connection, which is shaken when their investigation begins to bear fruit.
I loved this book! It has the most interesting blend of humor intertwined with sadness. Almost everyone in the book is lost and adrift in their lives except for Kate—who has purpose and drive to spare. O'Flynn does a brilliant job of creating fully realized characters. You get inside the heads of Kate, Kurt and Lisa, and I so enjoyed my time there—even though I often found myself simultaneously laughing and filled with aching sadness for them. Even Green Oaks becomes a character of sorts—becoming a menacing and almost evil presence in the story.
Although there wasn't nearly enough of Kate in the book (and the reason for my not giving it 5 stars ... I guess I want to punish the author for not giving me more of Kate!), I was entranced by this story from the very first page until the last. O'Flynn does a brilliant job of tying everything together in a way that was both satisfying and realistic. It was hard for me to believe this was O'Flynn's first book. She is a true talent (as evidenced by this book winning the Costa First Novel Award), and I await her next book anxiously. Do yourself a favor and read this book! It is filled to the brim with all the good and bad aspects of the human existence. Books like this don't come along very often so don't miss it.
An Excerpt
There were always fresh flowers on these graves, along with stone teddy bears and faded dolls. Among them was the grave of Wayne West, a boy Kate remembered vaguely from Infants One, who had somehow put his head inside a plastic bag and suffocated. Every year he was remembered in prayers at school and in mass, but Kate always wondered if he had really died that way. It seemed such a convenient cautionary tale. Kate was waiting for the day that the teachers would present some blind boy in assembly who had lost his vision when someone had thrown a snowball with a stone in it. The school had already had a talk from a boy with one foot who had lost the other playing on the railway tracks. Kate had a gruesome image of teachers from competing schools bidding for injured children at a local hospital and ascribing a range of childhood misdemeanors to them. "I've got a paraplegic little girl here, ideal for stamping out leaning back on chairs." "How about this almost-blind boy, ideal for carrot promotion."
FALCON INVESTIGATIONS
Clues found. Suspects trailed. Crimes detected.
Visit our office equipped with the latest surveillance equipment.
Being only 10 years old and with limited transportation, Kate performs the majority of her detective work at the newly opened Green Oaks shopping center. Virtually ignored by her grandmother (her mother abandoned her when she was small and her beloved father died of a stroke not too long ago), Kate is free to spend hours trailing suspects at Green Oaks and observing the goings on in her neighborhood. One of her few friends is Adrian, the older son of a local shopkeeper and one of the few grown-ups who take Kate seriously. At school, Kate keeps mostly to herself until she befriends Teresa, a new girl who doesn't always do things by the rules either. Unfortunately, this fledgling friendship and Falcon Investigations comes to an abrupt end when Kate disappears without a trace.
Fast forward 20 years and we meet Kurt, a security guard at Green Oaks shopping center. Lonely and adrift in life, Kurt is startled to see a young girl appear on the mall's surveillance cameras after-hours. Yet no trace of the girl is found; she seems to be a figment of Kurt's imagination. Kurt is haunted by the girl and ends up teaming up with Lisa, the assistant manager of the record store in the mall, to figure out who the girl is and what happened to her.
Like Kurt, Lisa is also lonely (despite being in a relationship) and stuck in her life. She is haunted by the disappearance of her brother Adrian, who was suspected of being involved in Kate's disappearance years before and fled home to avoid media scrutiny. Realizing that the girl on the video may be Kate, Lisa teams up with Kurt to conduct their own after-hours investigation in Green Oaks—hoping to solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance and remove the cloud of suspicion from Adrian. Along the way, Lisa and Kurt begin to forge a fragile connection, which is shaken when their investigation begins to bear fruit.
I loved this book! It has the most interesting blend of humor intertwined with sadness. Almost everyone in the book is lost and adrift in their lives except for Kate—who has purpose and drive to spare. O'Flynn does a brilliant job of creating fully realized characters. You get inside the heads of Kate, Kurt and Lisa, and I so enjoyed my time there—even though I often found myself simultaneously laughing and filled with aching sadness for them. Even Green Oaks becomes a character of sorts—becoming a menacing and almost evil presence in the story.
Although there wasn't nearly enough of Kate in the book (and the reason for my not giving it 5 stars ... I guess I want to punish the author for not giving me more of Kate!), I was entranced by this story from the very first page until the last. O'Flynn does a brilliant job of tying everything together in a way that was both satisfying and realistic. It was hard for me to believe this was O'Flynn's first book. She is a true talent (as evidenced by this book winning the Costa First Novel Award), and I await her next book anxiously. Do yourself a favor and read this book! It is filled to the brim with all the good and bad aspects of the human existence. Books like this don't come along very often so don't miss it.
An Excerpt
There were always fresh flowers on these graves, along with stone teddy bears and faded dolls. Among them was the grave of Wayne West, a boy Kate remembered vaguely from Infants One, who had somehow put his head inside a plastic bag and suffocated. Every year he was remembered in prayers at school and in mass, but Kate always wondered if he had really died that way. It seemed such a convenient cautionary tale. Kate was waiting for the day that the teachers would present some blind boy in assembly who had lost his vision when someone had thrown a snowball with a stone in it. The school had already had a talk from a boy with one foot who had lost the other playing on the railway tracks. Kate had a gruesome image of teachers from competing schools bidding for injured children at a local hospital and ascribing a range of childhood misdemeanors to them. "I've got a paraplegic little girl here, ideal for stamping out leaning back on chairs." "How about this almost-blind boy, ideal for carrot promotion."
toesinthesand's review against another edition
3.0
This is a weird book. I liked it although it made me vaguely depressed, thinking about all the minimum wage workers at shopping malls... There's a sense of hopelessness and unfulfilled dreams throughout. There are some read-out-loud funny parts though, especially if you hate interacting with the public. A few parts go off too far on tangents but it's mostly funny and a fast read.
celinacurry1's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book in Maire Claire...interesting and a quick read. It takes a some time before you see how the stories are connected. Worth the couple hours it will take to finish this novel.
annebrooke's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best novels I have ever read. Beautifully written and described with a core of steel, I loved it. It was achingly sad and achingly good. A work of genius to my mind.