The Ultimate Thriller Stakes: When a Parent Protects a Child

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My latest book, Just Another Missing Person, is about Julia, a police officer. On the first night on a new missing person’s case, she gets in her car, exhausted, looks up, and in the rearview mirror sees a man in the back wearing a balaclava. He says only one word: ‘Drive.’ After this, he hands her a note, which says he knows her worst secret, and she must do everything he tells her to do on the case she’s on, starting by planting evidence. Julia, who covered up a crime for her daughter the previous year, has no choice but to comply.

Writing it got me thinking about this theme in crime novels and how it really ratchets up the stakes — what parent wouldn’t protect their own child? Here are five (other!) novels which do it brilliantly:

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell – part crime thriller, part love story between mother and daughter, this is a novel about a long-gone set of missing teenagers and a sign that turns up saying ‘Dig Here.’ I would read Lisa Jewell’s shopping list, but I especially loved this. 

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan – an MP is put on trial for murder – but is she innocent, or protecting her daughter, or perhaps (somehow?) both? Vaughan writes compellingly about life in the political public eye: I’m sort of amazed Emma Webster is a character and not a real person. 

Hostage by Clare Mackintosh – this taut and surprisingly unpredictable thriller asks the question: would you kill two hundred people to save your child? What I loved most about it is that it is really a novel about the who and the why, rather than the dilemma itself. 

Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena – a safe neighbourhood, a missing child, and a whole host of parents protecting children, wives protecting husbands, and nefarious and shady characters hiding in plain sight. I loved it! 

The Pact by Jodi Picoult – and oldie but a goodie, and perhaps (personally) the book I think about the most while writing. It’s haunting and moody and perfect. Two teenagers make a suicide pact, but one of them survives. This is a story really about the parental friendships you make when your kids get on, and where your loyalty lies when things go wrong. There’s a scene in this book that you will remember forever. 

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