The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

Author: Rene Denfeld 

Title: The Child Finder 

Publisher: W & N

Published: 2017

Pages: 288

Genre: Thriller 

     Naomi Cottle finds missing children. When the police have given up their search and an investigation stalls, families call her. She possesses a rare, intuitive sense, born out of her own experience, that allows her to succeed when others have failed. Young Madison Culver has been missing for three years. She vanished on a family trip to the mountainous forests of Oregon, where they'd gone to cut down a tree for Christmas. Soon after she disappeared, blizzards swept the region and the authorities presumed she died from exposure. But Naomi knows that Madison isn't dead. As she relentlessly pursues the truth behind Madison's disappearance, shards of a dark dream pierce defenses that have protected her for so long. If she finds this child, will Naomi ultimately unlock the secrets of her own life?

     It's that time of the year when the weather is starting to change, the cold days are starting to give way to longer sunnier spells. And with this Certain types of books tend to slip from my immediate to be read pile. But whilst the sky is still a little grey I thought I might try and slip one more wintery type book before the eventual autumn rolls back around. In fairness to The Child Finder, it has been sat waiting its turn since last September, but all things have their time. There is something about people going missing that always grabs me. I have often wondered what happens to those myriads of adults and children that go missing every year. How many go off and start new lives and how many are still waiting for their bones to be found. In the case of children, it is never the former through choice. But in the case of this book we already know she is still alive so what has Madison been doing these long three years. 

     Naomi is a character that comes with her fair share of problems. Her past is always bubbling away just under the surface. Does this make her better at her job? probably but it does mean that she is forever being torn apart by it. But when it comes to such a book I suppose we don't like our heroes to not be too intact. They need to be rough around the edges and just a little broken by their demons. With Naomi, you feel compassion not only for what she has been through but also for the path she is on. The jobs she takes on are for people who have reached the bottom of hope. Such is the case with Madison, for the people of her town, she is a long time dead. So maybe Naomi is just there to pick at the bones of a family who can't face the truth. But as we are to discover dear readers this is very far from the case. Denfeld chose to break her narrative between the two. As Naomi search for the truth, Madison tries to find her own. As ever it's relative to whatever our reality happens to be. For how one person sees a situation can be all too different for others. Nevertheless not only does she read as someone of her age but also someone deeply confused by the situation she finds herself in. Do her memory in fact play tricks on her, did she have a life before the cave and the trapper.

     For me, the way Denfeld makes her narrative flow like a steady stream of snowmelt works so well for her story. This cold and harsh environment traps not only our two leads but us into their fates. We are in that cave just a breath away from a girl who is starting to question everything around her. How much longer can she put up with the claustrophobic world she has been forced to inhabit. It was an interesting experience to witness her testing the limits of her surroundings as she tries to gain some ounce of control.  But that's the thing with this author her characters mirror each other. So just as much as the trapped girl is going through all this we get it reflected back from Naomi. A woman who for all intense and purses is free trying to gain control of not only the forces driving her but also a case that seems to be dead on arrival. It is between these two that the story often took unexpected turns. I suppose I went in with a great many expectations as to just where this story was headed. And it was more than a pleasant surprise to be mistaken. This author seems to have known from the get-go just where she wanted to lead us. 

     Whilst there is a great deal going on within these pages for me at its core there is a much simpler story at work. This is a story of two people trying to survive under conditions that could so easily crush them into dust. There is something truly heartwarming to be found within the struggles we witness from these two women. For me, this was a book of a great many surprises and a journey that definitely took me on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. I looked forward in the future to digging into the next installment of this series.