Elizabeth is Missing
By (Author) Emma Healey
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Books Ltd
2nd January 2015
1st January 2015
United Kingdom
Professional and Scholarly
Fiction
813/.6
Short-listed for Costa First Novel Award 2014
Paperback
304
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 18mm
217g
A mystery, an unsolved crime and one of the most unforgettable characters since Mark Haddon's Christopher. Meet Maud. . . 'Elizabeth is missing', reads the note in Maud's pocket in her own handwriting. Lately, Maud's been getting forgetful. She keeps buying peach slices when she has a cupboard full, forgets to drink the cups of tea she's made and writes notes to remind herself of things. But Maud is determined to discover what has happened to her friend, Elizabeth, and what it has to do with the unsolved disappearance of her sister Sukey, years back, just after the war. A fast-paced mystery with a wonderful leading character- Maud will make you laugh and cry, but she certainly won't be forgotten.
The novel is both a gripping detective yarn and a haunting depiction of mental illness, but also more poignant and blackly comic than you might expect from that description... perhaps Healey's greatest achievement is the flawless voice she creates for Maud. * The Observer *
A compelling mystery that capture the experience of Maud, a highly memorable elderly woman losing her memory * Sunday Express *
Riveting psychological thriller * Stylist's Best Books of 2014 *
A thrillingly assured, haunting and unsettling novel, I read it at a gulp -- Deborah Moggach
Emma Healey, a former bookseller, grew up in London where she went to art college and completed her first degree in bookbinding. She then worked for two libraries, two bookshops, two art galleries and two universities, and was busily pursuing a career in the art world before writing overtook everything. She moved to Norwich in 2010 to study for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA and never moved back again. Elizabeth is Missing, her first novel, was a Sunday Times Bestseller, won the Costa First Novel Award 2014 and was shortlisted for the National Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year.