The Girl In The Red Coat by Kate Hamer

Author : Kate Hamer
Title : The Girl In The Red coat
Published : 2015
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Pages : 384
Genre : Mystery / Thriller

      Eight-year-old Carmel has always been different - sensitive, distracted, with an heart stopping tendency to go missing. Her mother Beth, newly single, worries about her daughter's strangeness, especially as she is trying to rebuild a life for the two of them on her own. When she takes Carmel for an outing to a local festival, her worst fear is realised: Carmel disappears into the crowd. Unable to accept the possibility that her daughter might be gone for good, Beth embarks on a mission to find her. Meanwhile, Carmel begins an extraordinary and terrifying journey of her own. But do the real clues to Carmel's disappearance lie in the otherworldly qualities her mother had only begun to guess at?

     When first reading the description for the book I was very curious as to what it could offer than any of us had not seen before. The stories of young children going missing are ones that authors have planned around with for as long as I can remember. They all to often follow the same kind of plot like they are stuck on a rail. The final destination being all too obvious to anyone who has dipped into this genre before. But as this book was recommended by my mom I could hardly turn it down so it was with a little trepidation that I jumped in hoping for the best.   

     While the first couple of chapter found me on my usual footing it soon becomes obvious that this book was going to take me on a whole new journey. For a start, the book is split in between our two heroes. Firstly of Beth, she is our point of view into the story the heartfelt world of a mother who is doing all she can to try and get her daughter back. And let's be honest who amongst us wouldn't. We aren't talking Liam Neeson, but rather what to this reader at least felt closet to reality. How for those who lose children in stranger abduction cases lives fall apart with no answers as to what happened and so many false leads coming into the police that they feel like they are drowning. It becomes a swirl of emotions and a desperate fight against an unknown suspect.  The second perspective we pry our way into is for me a different shift in the genre, and here is where we get insight that Beth could only hope for. Unlike most of these kinds of books, the author shifts us ever so slightly away from whoever may have taken Carmel and into Carmel's own point of view. Here we experience the naive world of a little girl who whilst confused by the events that have taken place is still prone to believing all she is told.  She feels real and wholesome in her world views, and as things progress and her small world changes in the ever bigger way these same feeling and emotions hold true. 

     One of the things that is missing from this story and for which I am grateful for is that of sexual child abuse. Too often this is a turn that comes with the genre. And I fully understand why in the real world this is how things end more often than not when it isn't a custody battle involved. Hamer at this point subverts the genre and shows us that there is a whole new story to be told. That while there is abuse here, it is more of the emotional kind. Its how someone can manipulate another into believing things as gospel truth, without ever looking too closely at it. I suppose this is far easier down in children. When their trust comes it is complete, the tough to pluck it apart never even crosses there minds.  So for Carmel, it becomes Stockholm syndrome, which at times makes it all the more harrowing for us as the reader. We know that not only is she being lied to but there here mother is out there trying her best to get her home safe and sound. The author also takes her story on a much more international level, not only having the base of her story in England but also across the pond to America. In doing so she draws out the story and brings in themes that would not have worked out so well over here in England. 

     This was a book that took me by surprise and flew through it in two sittings. She has created a full and believable world for Carmel and Beth to play out their story.  It kept me on my toes as I tried to figure out just how a young girl was going to rescue from this strange world she had landed in. No clicking of her heels was going to bring her back home. But this is also about Carmel never forgetting who she is or where she came from. Tough enough feet even for an adult. So between the mystery of just why she has been taken and the thrills of a mother trying to get her daughter back, this is about the love two people share for each other, A flame that will never be extinguished.