Twisted by Lynda La Plante

Simon and Schuster, 2014. ISBN 9781471125881.
(Age: 16+) Crime fiction, Murder. Although the Fulfords are getting divorced they seem to be coping well. Lena is a successful business woman and is beginning to go out on her own again, Marcus her husband is handsome and seems able to get along with everyone, while Amy the daughter is intelligent and does well at her private school both academically and at sports.
When Amy disappears the characters begin to reveal themselves. DI Reid finds himself in a difficult situation. In charge of missing persons investigations he quickly finds he doesn't have the resources to deal with the case. He also finds that no one is being honest. All involved have something in their past which they'd prefer to keep hidden; the house keeper, the driver, her best school chums, her teachers and her father's best friend.
A diary Amy was given records sexual encounters between her father and the prostitutes he uses and, given the language she uses when she writes her journal, we see that she is not the innocent Miss Perfect that she has been made out to be.
La Plante keeps the plot moving along so that the reader is never sure who has the best motive for Amy's disappearance, and how and why she has gone missing. The murder squad is eventually called in and the abrasive DCI Jackson and his assumptions bring matters to a head.
The ending is however so contrived and unbelievable, even given the contexts of the narrative, that it is a let down after all the emotional trauma La Plante has put her readers through.
Mark Knight