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Losing You

Author: Nicci French
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

27 reviews
Sales Rank: 7105

Media: Paperback
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.1

ISBN: 0141035412
EAN: 9780141035413
ASIN: 0141035412

Publication Date: March 6, 2008
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•	Hardcover - Losing You
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•	Audio CD - Losing You ( Unabridged Audio Book)
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Similar Items:

•	Catch Me When I Fall
•	Until It's Over
•	Beneath the Bleeding
•	Beneath the Skin
•	The Memory Game

Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...

2 out of 5 stars

Terribly disappointing July 18, 2008
This book has an agonisingly slow start & doesn't 'get going' until around 200 pages. There then follows some OK panicky scenes until the denoument, which was so disappointing I hurled the book down in disgust. It left dozens of questions hanging as if the authors (Nicci French is 2 & it really shows in this book)just couldn't be bothered to finish the book off properly. Seriously, it's as if they had to rush off to catch a plane or something. I was enraged I'd wasted the time reading it.

2 out of 5 stars

A bit of a let down June 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I am a big fan of Nicci french and have read all her novels but really struggled to get into this one. In fact, I found it very hard to get into and as i was reading it I kept wondering who all these reviewers on the jacket cover were who "couldn't put it down" or were "totally gripped from the beginning" !! It was padded out with far too much humdrum minutia at the beginning, and the main character is so laid back and casual (who on earth lets their teenage daughter stay out all night, with no packing done, the night before you have to set off to catch a flight abroad !?) that you simply do not get that feeling of gut wrenching panic that you would expect from a mother in this situation. Likewise, the idea of a party being taken in your stride (and any daughter thinking that was going to go down well !) two hours before you leave for the airport was ludicrous. The first few chapters I found totally unbelievable, and ploddingly boring, but i stuck with it as i was sure it could only get better.....

The book gathers pace but I didnt find Ninas 'intuitive' deductions convincing, and I agree with another reviewer who found her a bit of a comicbook heroine. In fact I found myself having to suspend belief every few pages with this book, especially towards the end when she tracks the killer down in her car, and manages to stalk him without him realising. The next scenes are more reminiscent of the Nicci French talent I have enjoyed in the past, and they alone convinced me to give the book two stars instead of one. The ending was such a let down....no explanation, so many loose ends, really disappointing.

2 out of 5 stars

Too many unanswered questions June 19, 2008
I couldn't wait to get this one home and get stuck in, and at first I wasn't disappointed.

The first half of the book is gripping, but as I carried on I liked Nina less and less, I'm afraid - she began to annoy me, and her attitude towards her younger son was unforgiveable. I understand that Nina found herself in the middle of any parent's worse nightmare, and of course Nina wanted her daughter home safe and sound, but I felt that Rory's attitude towards Jackson was a bone of contention between them, and there she was dumping him on anyone and everyone, even when he was deeply distressed.

There were several characters I couldn't get a handle on, notably Renata, who arrived to look after the dog, stayed a while then went home. What was the point of her? We learned more about the dog than we did about some of the key characters, though naturally the story is told from Nina's perspective, and we know that she didn't interact with her neighbours, but I thought Renata was a cousin?

But my biggest gripe was with the sudden realisation of who the kidnapper was. I honestly thought that I'd missed a few pages, and I even flicked back to check! I didn't get how the penny dropped for Nina, and like other reviewers have said, we don't have the final closure.

I would have liked to have heard Charlie's side, which should have been in a final chapter, because we were never going to get this from Nina as there's a sense of growing up and growing apart, which Nina is acutely aware of. As it is, the story just stops in mid air.

Sorry, Nicci French. Not one of your best.

2 out of 5 stars

A disappointing ending... June 17, 2008
I have read previous nvels by the Nicci French writing team and have always enjoyed them, however I found this novel slightly disappointing. The concept is a good one: every parent's worst nightmare, their child goes missing and the Police seem to be dragging their heels.

Unfortunately this is where the protagonist mother becomes increasingly comedic. I understand that you would do absolutely anything within your power to look for your child, but the extent this protagonist goes to is a little over the top.

Credit due to the writers, the climax is a gripping page turner although the ending just seems to fall flat on it's face. It all seems to be written quite juvenile-like, the explanation given as an afterthought to the whole novel and as a reader that's followed loyally through every page, you do put it down feeling rather disappointed.

4 out of 5 stars

A suspenseful novel you won't want to put down June 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I'm a long-time Nicci French fan, but it's been more than two years since I picked up anything written by this husband-and-wife team. Once-upon-a-time I would anxiously await each new release, sometimes even buying them in hardcover when expenses would allow, because I enjoyed reading these psychological thrillers so much.

But I found the last French book, Catch Me When I Fall, slightly disappointing. It felt like the girl-on-the-run-from-a-stranger franchise had become tired and too formulaic, or perhaps I'd simply cottoned on to the fact that Nicci French is a one-trick pony and I wanted a little more from the reading experience. Needless to say, I didn't rush out and buy the next one: I bided my time and acquired it via BookMooch a month or so ago.

Losing You, I am happy to report, is a welcome breaking of the mould. This time it's not a young woman being stalked that forms the backbone of the narrative, but a mother searching for her missing child. It's a refreshing change.

The novel -- the 10th one in the French catalogue -- is set on Sandling Island, 60 miles from London, "but, rimmed as it was by the tidal estuary and facing out to open sea, it had the feel of a different world, gripped by weather and seasons; full of wild spaces, loneliness, the strange call of sea-birds and sighing winds". It's the ideal claustrophobic and slightly creepy setting for the story that enfolds over the course of the next 290 pages.

Nina Landry, recently separated from her husband, is about to embark on a Christmas break to Florida with her new beau and her two children, 15-year-old Charlie (Charlotte) and 11-year-old Jackson. The day ahead looms large, with a million tasks to do before the family heads to Heathrow for their 6pm flight, but things go off kilter before it even gets started. First, Nina's car breaks down, then her house is swamped by people throwing a surprise 40th birthday party for her -- and all this before 11am.

It's only when Nina notices Charlie's absence that the suspense gets ratcheted up a notch or two. When she calls the police, they assume it's simply a case of a teenager running away because she's unhappy at home. But Nina knows this isn't true.

Embarking on her own investigation, she slowly pieces together Charlie's last movements and, in doing so, learns that the relationship she has with her daughter is not as open or as trusting as she first thought. Nina slowly begins to uncover secrets within secrets, all of which lead her to believe that Charlie will turn up dead if she doesn't find her quickly...

This is typical French fare in the sense that the suspense doesn't really let up from the word go, helped in part by absolutely no chapter breaks. The prose style hurries along at an ever-quickening pace without losing the rich detail and vivid descriptions that bring the narrative to life -- you get a real sense of the people, the places and the events that occur in ways that a less-busy, tell-don't-show style would fail to deliver.

There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot, and many characters are not what they first appear to be, and all the while the story never really escalates into all-out melodrama. Indeed, it reads as quite an authentic account of a panicked mother trying to find her missing child when the rest of the world doesn't seem to take her concerns seriously enough.

Losing You is a thoroughly entertaining read, one to quicken the pulse and test your powers of deduction all the way through. I can honestly say I did not guess the ending, nor the perpetrator, which is quite rare in much of my recent reading experience.

Now, that French seems to have worked her way into my good books once again, I wonder where I can get my hands on a copy of her latest novel Until It's Over...