Gone

Gone by Mo Hayder is a detective thriller about a carjacker, whose crimes not only involve the forced theft of cars but include kidnapping – in the first case, a car is stolen with an eleven-year-old girl in the backseat; after the theft of the car the child is not found or returned to her parents. DI Jack Caffrey becomes increasingly concerned about the nature of the theft, particularly when it becomes clear that the kidnappers plan to strike again. The book is set in modern-day Bristol, UK, and features police diver Flea Marley, an incredibly talented cop with questionable stability. It is the fifth novel to feature Caffrey as a protagonist.

The novel opens in November, late evening, in West Country in the United Kingdom. Lead detective and murder investigator Jack Caffrey has been called in to interview the victim of a recent carjacking. Though Caffrey has dealt with car thefts before, he is not prepared for this interview, in which the victim claims that the car was stolen by force, while they were inside it, and that the thief drove away with the victim’s eleven-year-old daughter in the backseat. Even stranger: the carjacker was wearing a clown mask when he attacked. Caffrey is concerned when the girl doesn't show up, and the investigation into her whereabouts begins. Soon after, the carjacker contacts the police, indicating that his crime was motivated by something far more nefarious than Caffrey thought. The carjacker says, “It's started,” launching Caffrey and his team into an intensive investigation to not only recover the lost girl, but to stop future carjacking and kidnappings before the criminal can accumulate more victims.

Caffrey, whose personality and interests have been established in four previous books, is not particularly effusive or friendly, and so seems the least empathetic person to be searching for young girls. However, a backstory about his own missing brother still haunts him, and because of this, Caffrey's investment in finding this missing girl is laden with his own personal motivations and desire to recover a lost loved one. Caffrey is assisted in the case by a street friend, who, though a bit unhinged, has a deep knowledge of the streets – Caffrey refers to him as Walking Man.



Walking Man leads Caffrey to a series of airshafts under the city. This is accessed through a sunken barge in a nearby canal, where Caffrey runs into police diver Flea Marley. Marley and Caffrey have a checkered past; Marley is generally skeptical of Caffrey because of his past behavior and the way he has handled investigations. Marley, however, has her own problems – her traumatic past frequently destabilizes her in her work; beyond that, she is waist deep in criminal allegations. Marley's mother, who has chronic issues with addiction and alcoholism, ran over a woman in the street, and Marley took the blame for the manslaughter in order to protect her. Marley has a mission of her own in this saga, and the two investigators assist each other and go their own way over the course of the novel, providing an undercurrent of banter and skepticism on both parts.

As the novel progresses, it takes a unique turn, when Caffrey, rather than being the brilliant detective who sees all the clues miles ahead of everyone else, is frequently outsmarted by the mother of the girl who is missing. Caffrey seems to have his head in the sand during some important moments that ultimately lead to a prime suspect, though, eventually, it is Caffrey that saves the day and makes sense of the convoluted investigation.

Mo Hayder is the author of ten crime and thriller novels, many of which feature DI Jack Caffrey. She was born in and writes primarily about England. An international bestseller, she has won a number of awards, including an Edgar Award, a Barry Award for Best British Crime, a WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award, and others. Her debut novel, and the first novel featuring DI Caffrey, was called Birdman (2000). Ritual, Skin, Gone, Poppet, and Wolf also feature DI Caffrey and are considered part of the Walking Man series. Ritual, the first in the series, was shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award. Hayder has written three standalone novels: Tokyo, Pig Island, and Hanging Hill. Her second book, The Treatment, was adapted for film in Dutch in 2014. Hayder lives outside Bath, England with her husband, a retired police officer with the Avon and Somerset Police Underwater Search Unit. Her husband's work in the search unit inspired detective Flea Marley and her team.