The Missing One - Tapa blanda

"A gripping page-turner."--The Sunday Times

"This novel is brilliantly gripping."--Closer

"Lucy Atkins's engrossing debut immediately immerses the reader in intrigue."--Publisher's Weekly

A Best of 2014 Books Pick
Best Mysteries of 2014
"Part mystery, part feminist tome, part story of parental love, part animal-rights narrative, The Missing One is like nothing I've read before . . . [a] poetic page turner"--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A moving and suspenseful tale of the secrets a family keeps."--Rachel Hore, author of The Silent Tide

"Beautifully written and compelling... a wonderful thriller that is also such a strong portrayal of motherhood.--Sabine Durrant, author of Under Your Skin

"A page-turning and suspenseful tale... I read it in three sittings... a compelling emotional mystery."--Lucy Clarke, author of The Sea Sisters

In her gripping debut novel, Lucy Atkins takes us on one woman's journey to the beautiful and rugged Pacific Northwest to discover the dark secrets of her family's past so that she can understand and accept herself. Kal McKenzie was never close to her mother Elena, whose coldness towards her spoiled any chance of a good relationship. When Elena dies of cancer, Kal feels forlorn: how do you mourn a mother who, inexplicably, just didn't seem to love you?
While clearing out Elena's art studio, Kal finds a drawer packed with postcards, each bearing an identical one-line message from a Canadian gallery owner named Susannah Gillespie: "Thinking of you." Who is this woman and might she hold the key to her ruined relationship with her mother?
Conflicted by her grief and shaken up from recently seeing a covetous text from an old girlfriend on her husband's cell phone, Kal impulsively sets off with her toddler Finn to Susannah's home on a remote British Columbian island, a place of killer whales and storms.
Soon Kal quickly realizes she has made a big mistake. The striking and enigmatic Susannah will only share a few scraps of information about Elena. Kal discovers that her mother was a pioneering orca researcher-an activist trying to save the powerful and dangerous creatures.