I started reading What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn at the beginning of November but put it aside while I was doing NaNoWriMo. Side bar: I ended with ~22,000 words, so less than half way, but it was fun to write again - and I need to find closure for my characters. I worry that they are hanging out there lost.
But back to What Was Lost. It is the story of 10 year-old Kate Meaney who goes missing in 1984. Kate is a loner who pretends she is a private detective with her partner a stuffed monkey dressed in spats. With her vivid imagination and attention to detail, you often wonder how such a girl could go missing. Adrian, the 22 year old clerk at a newsstand and Kate's friend, is the last person to see her when he drops her off for a entrance exam for boarding school and becomes a prime suspect.
Fast forward twenty years later to Green Oaks Shopping Center, site of many of Kate's stake outs. There we meet Kurt, the security guard who thinks he sees Kate on surveillance video and Lisa, Adrian's sister, who has always believed in her brother's innocence, but has struggled since he left after the pressure of being a suspect. Together, they heal many wounds and solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance.
O'Flynn's story is part mystery and part exploration of loss and it leaves you saddened but hopeful.
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