Missing Marriage

Excellent book. The author has put in a great amount of effort and thought into this story, and is a great read. Definitely recommend Sarah May's other works.

For me this was a crime novel rather than a tragi-comedy or love story although there are hints of each genre. Firmly rooted in the North East, peppered plentifully with local references, `The Missing Marriage' initially seems to be cast in flat packed cardboard characters but happily they struggle into life as the book goes on. By the middle I was more convinced of them all and keen to follow their fortunes.Getting to know the detective Laviolette, whose name sounds like a roll of loo paper; is the `heroine' Anna, also a member of the police force, a Detective Sergeant. Her similarly unusually named Granddad, Erwin Faust, is dying and she's back in her old home, on compassionate leave, to see his illness through; however to begin with, for the reader, it's all rather a lot to take on board. Peripheral players distract and annoy - they take too much effort to clock into your brain and muddle the storyline. Information overload warning.A man goes missing and equally as quickly we are told of his reappearance and then we scoot back to the past when his wife Laura and Anna are girls climbing trees. So topsy-turvy at times it's dizzying. The atmosphere in the house of Bryan, the missing man, is flat and dry; his newly minted widow seems to lack the expected feelings. Young Martha, their daughter, expresses emotion, and to give her credit, so does Roxy the dog, who was comfortably expecting to watch Strictly Come Dancing after her supper, as was her routine, with the lady of the house.All involved are connected by their pasts in the North East; nothing can be put aside or forgotten. For this scene setting Sarah May uses her childhood in the Durham area. There is a satisfying amount of clever, sensitive writing around the subject of the old man Erwin's illness and another's senile dementia; also in recalling the divided loyalties and tensions of the Miners Strike. Prisoners of WWII held in this country feature too; their small story is poignant. Cruelty and corruption causing miscarriages of justice, chickens coming home to roost and old scores being settled. Thoughtful pockets of skilful observation lift the everyday mood of the rest.Despite the overwrought hype this isn't truly involving story telling, it's more of a beach read (perhaps that is a tactless suggestion seeing the loss occurs on a beach), a complicated tale of deception and unravelling, a mental tease. A muddled manic ending that left me feeling wrung out!

Laura and Bryan are apparently happily married when Bryan takes a kayak out to sea off the Northumbrian coast and fails to return. Anna returns home to be with her grandfather in his last illness. Anna knew Bryan and Laura when she was a child and clearly knows more about them both than is at first revealed. Jamie, Bryan's brother is newly released from a twenty year prison term.From the first few words of the Prologue it is clear that there is more to Bryan's disappearance than at first meets the eye but the reader will have to wait until nearly the end of the book before the mystery is unravelled. Episodes from the shared past of all the people in the story including the police inspector in charge of the case are interweaved with events in the present. On the face of it this should be an interesting and thought provoking story. I would love to write that it succeeded in making me care about the fate of Laura and Bryan - but it didn't. I found by the time I got to the end of the book that I really did not care what happened to them and they seemed to me to have brought their troubles on themselves.I did find a spark of interest in Anna but at times I lost sight of her during the book. I found the events from the past totally confusing and soon lost any desire I might have had to unravel them and see how they were affecting the present. Laviolette - the Inspector in charge of the case - seems almost like a character put together out of spare parts to me. I wanted to like him and find him interesting but I could not find any sympathy for him even when his past was revealed.The writing is good and atmospheric but I could not warm to any of the characters and the plot seemed just too convoluted to be altogether convincing. There are loose ends where events that needed more explanation were glossed over in a few lines. There were also some totally gratuitous episodes towards the end which did not advance the story and seemed to have been included for effect. I felt quite depressed by the time I'd finished reading even though I'd started out with high hopes of this novel and the people were so unimpressive that I found I had to keep checking names even though I finished the book only a few hours ago. Disappointing.

A compelling story but written in such a convoluted way that I would have to re-read sentences a few times to make sense of it.It took a month to read and it was hard work to get to the end.From the opening sentence to the final chapter I found it a chore, difficult and at the conclusion couldn't really say I was glad I'd read it.There were whole sections that described little asides that were neither necessary or moved the story on.Sorry, I couldn't recommend this book.

The synopsis of this book really intrigued me. A couple, in debt, who need a way out.The book zips along at a real pace and I found myself wanting to find out what happens. Why was Laura not as sad as everyone else? What was Jamie's secret? Why did Anna suddenly turn up? The way May links all these characters and their lives is very clever.Unfortunately, there were too many characters and too many settings. You didn't know where you were half the time and the author spent a lot of time telling rather than showing. It was confusing and I found myself going back constantly. The book is described as 'tragi-comic' but it was definately more tragic. It was one thing after another and so sad at times. This almost made me give up on it. And the ending was just odd. I'm still not sure I understand what happens.All in all, this wasn't what I expected. It was hard work and just depressing at times. I won't be rushing to read anymore books by this author.