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A review by paulabrandon
The Nowhere Child by Christian White
3.0
Kim Leamy is approached by a guy who claims to be a journalist, and claims that she is actually Sammy Went, who went missing 28 years ago when she was only two years old. Kim lives in Melbourne, Australia, but Sammy went missing from Kentucky in the US. Kim travels to the US and starts meeting up with her long-lost family members. Her visit starts to uncover some of the secrets that have been hidden from that time, and links to a snake-handling cult.
Solid suspense story that was just a bit too slow-burn to really wow me. The characterisation is excellent, but the plot twists are few and far between, and most of them are predictable. The chapters in the past dealing with the sheriff's investigation tended to drag the proceedings to a halt: we know what happened to Sammy and there was no real purpose to reading about him tracking down false leads. The chapters in the past exploring the grief and pain of Sammy's family members were more effective and necessary. There is also a completely pointless chapter in which Kim goes for a walk and photographs stuff (?) It goes nowhere and doesn't reveal anything about the plot or Kim's psyche, and I couldn't figure out why it was there.
The climax is very effective and shiver-inducing. Eek! This was Christian White's first novel, and his follow-up, The Wife And The Widow, was even better. I'm looking forward to checking out his latest, The Wild Place.
Solid suspense story that was just a bit too slow-burn to really wow me. The characterisation is excellent, but the plot twists are few and far between, and most of them are predictable. The chapters in the past dealing with the sheriff's investigation tended to drag the proceedings to a halt: we know what happened to Sammy and there was no real purpose to reading about him tracking down false leads. The chapters in the past exploring the grief and pain of Sammy's family members were more effective and necessary. There is also a completely pointless chapter in which Kim goes for a walk and photographs stuff (?) It goes nowhere and doesn't reveal anything about the plot or Kim's psyche, and I couldn't figure out why it was there.
The climax is very effective and shiver-inducing. Eek! This was Christian White's first novel, and his follow-up, The Wife And The Widow, was even better. I'm looking forward to checking out his latest, The Wild Place.