3 1/2 Stars
With a unique plot and told in different perspectives, this story had great potential, but didn’t quite live up to it. Told in alternating voices between a brother and sister in law enforcement, they were so alike that even with the chapter headings it was sometimes hard to differentiate between the two. Leah’s character would sometimes slip back into the past without notice and it was confusing at times. Two completely different cases, or are they, could they somehow be connected? Interspersed between chapters were cases of kidnap for ransom notes and results, which were quite intriguing. I really enjoyed this story, but found the conclusion to the murder a bit far fetched with all the other options available. Would like to see more of Leah and Finn in future books.

I like Emma Kavanagh’s writing. There is something about the way she handles a police procedural that carries with it a sense of caring and humanity, even when the crimes she is writing about can be quite brutal.

Selina and Ed Cole used to run their own highly thought of boutique company. The Cole Company specialises in Kidnap and Ransom, negotiating with kidnappers, liaising with insurance companies and advising commercial companies on how to avoid being kidnapped, as well as how to react if the unthinkable happened.

Then Ed was killed after an attack in Colombia at a kidnap and ransom conference, and Selina has taken a back seat in the company ever since, leaving the day to day management to her sister in law Orla and her husband, Seth.

Still grieving for her husband and struggling with depression, Selina now devotes herself to looking after their two young daughters, Heather and Tara.

Then one day, while she is out at the playpark with the girls, she disappears and is missing for almost a day before she is found, shaken and cold and with no memory of what has happened to her.

DC Leah Mackay from the Herefordshire Police force is assigned the case, but with no leads and nothing from Selina than can help, this is a mystery that should be put on the back burner when a local solicitor, Dominic Newell is found dead and all hands are required to work on the murder.

Leah’s brother, newly promoted DS Finn Hale is put in charge of the murder investigation and Leah is able to use her sway with her brother to convince him that she should have a little leeway to pursue Selina’s disappearance and that her theory that the two incidents are connected is worthy of some consideration.

Dominic Newell was Beck Chambers’ solicitor. Chambers is former soldier who served in Iraq with Ed Cole but who has had trouble re-entering normal society and who is plagued with drink and drug problems. He is an obvious suspect but there is nothing to pin him down and the case is throwing up a number of other suspects, not least of whom is Dominic’s partner, Isaac.

Leah and Finn make a really good team. They understand each other and have their own shorthand which cuts through the normal police rivalries as well as providing different personality traits which allows them to work well as a team.

Leah is predisposed to be empathetic. As a mother herself, she understands that it would take something out of the ordinary to walk away from two young children, leaving them alone and out of doors, yet she thinks Selina is lying.

Finn needs to prove himself to his colleagues in CID as he takes on his first role as lead detective in a murder enquiry, and he can’t afford to make mistakes, so he is driven to make sure that this case goes by the book and he’s putting in the hours to make certain that he misses nothing.

Yet although there seems to be a plethora of suspects, nothing really fits together sufficiently for Finn and Leah to make a compelling narrative of a murder and this case gets more complex as the investigation goes deeper.

Kavanagh provides different narratives from Leah and Finn interspersed with case studies from the Cole Company which are fascinating in themselves and offer a glimpse into a world where cool heads are required if lives are to be saved.

As Leah and Finn work together, the strands of the multi layered threads that Kavanagh has sewn begin to weave together to form a picture that will lead them to the answers they have been looking for.

Intriguing, ingenious and original, The Missing Hours is a tremendously satisfying read and Leah and Finn are characters I’d really like to see more of.

3.5 Stars The Missing Hours by new to me author Emma Kavanagh was a good read. It took a while for me to get into this one, it started well but then seemed to slow dramatically but perseverance paid off as overall it hit its mark. I liked this one and would recommend it to readers.

When Dr. Selena Cole mysteriously vanishes from a playground leaving her daughters alone and stranded, DC Leah Mackay takes the case but struggles to find any clues to help solve it. Twenty hours later, Selena is found alive but has no memory of where she was or how she got back home.

That same day, Leah’s brother, DS Finley Hale, is assigned the murder case of an associate who has been dumped unceremoniously on a mountain lane. Finn, too, finds any clues hard to come by.

What follows is a procedural whodunit with ping-ponging points of view between the brother and sister detectives who learn that more than one of the suspects in each case have crisscrossing ties to each other.
What at first appears to be just a creepy missing-persons case ends up dragging us into the shadowy world of kidnapping for ransom with each character becoming a suspect in crimes that are as much of a mystery as the perpetrators.

Kavanagh does a great job of revealing the truth in bite-sized morsels as we read along – totally caught up in the secrets of each person we meet. However, at times it was hard to follow the characters’ awkward trains of thought as they shifted from past to present and back again in the same unbroken paragraph.

I enjoyed this book and did not find it predictable or overly familiar. The ending felt a bit unsatisfyingly abrupt, but it did not take away from my overall appreciation of this well-written crime fiction novel.

This was a very predictable thriller, with a few twists. The characters were somewhat likable. Overall the book was just ok.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Excellent book with a brilliant storyline and great main characters. I would recommend this book.

Here is an interesting book that is equal parts missing persons, kidnapping & ransom, and murder mystery--all in taking place within an idyllic UK town. There were definitely some clever twists along the way that I didn't see coming, which was exciting. However, I found myself extremely distracted by the author's writing style. Numerous conversations in this book would be half conversations between characters with ellipses ex: "What do you..." "You mean..." "Don't..." and no further context as to what the heck is going on. I need just a little more exposition. And maybe I could have even dealt with the non-words without batting an eye, had there not been the more glaring issue of confusing flashback placement. Flashbacks occurred alongside descriptions in the present, causing me to have to stop and re-read sections several times to reorient myself. But those are all technical quibbles. Perhaps those could be overlooked if we had amazing characters moving the story along. Also not the case here! Both DS Hale and DC Mackay, brother and sister, are bland and boring as hell. We spend far too much time in their heads as they go through their day of one stream of consciousness thought path after another. I was shocked they were able to solve a case at all between Hale wondering whether he'll make a good sergeant and Mackay thinking about her husband's past infidelity and missing her kids while she's at work. All I wanted to read about were the murder and the disappearance, but most of this book is instead internal monologue. It's a shame because the case itself that is being investigated is pretty interesting. The rest of it though is a snooze fest.

This book was quite the thriller but some parts were really predictable. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

I loved The Missing Hours. This was a fantastic suspense crime solving read. I love the fact that the lead detectives in both cases are brother and sister. Leah and Finn played off each others strengths to get their cases solved. The Missing Hours gives you two different cases that will leave you wondering who did it and why up until the very end. Twists and trail and error will take you on a roller coaster of a ride. I loved this one so much and I can't wait to read more from Emma Kavanagh. As a first read by her I was surprised with how much I was drawn in and couldn't put The Missing Hours down.

One minute Selena Cole is at the park with her daughters, the next she is gone. A neighbour finds the girls and takes them home before calling the police. Not too far away a body is discovered by the side of the road. For a town where nothing really happens this is a lot for one day.

20 hours later Selena returns home but claims to have no memory of where she has been. The body is identified... could there be a connection?

This was a page turner that I read in 2 sittings this weekend. I loved the brother and sister police team that refuse to give up. I didn't trust many of the characters... and the ending was a really a surprise. This was my first book by Emma Kavanagh and I will be seeking out more.

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and enjoy in exchange for my honest opinions

This was really well written and I loved the sibling cop dynamic.

The Missing Hours started off really well with Heather finding her younger sister Tara all alone in the park and their mother, Selena Cole is nowhere to be found. The author pulls you right In with the questions of What happened to the Selena? Did she just leave her kids?

I must admit I had high hopes for this book with how it began but slowly this book lost me. The book went into perspectives of two different people DC Leah Mackay who is assigned the case of the missing Selena Cole and her brother DS Finn Hale who is investigating the murder of a lawyer which you find out later has connections to Selena and her family. At points I had trouble following who was who and I did skim through some paragraphs because I was so far into the book I had to know how it ended. It wasn’t an awful book it just added unnecessary things that I could have been okay without.


Overall I did eventually enjoy this book and the ended took me by surprise. Thanks NetGalley and everyone involved!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanaugh.
A woman disappears from a playground, a lawyer is found murdered, the woman reappears - what happened in those missing hours - she can't remember.
The writer does an excellent job in portraying the locale and creates a very good vision. There are alot of characters to follow, but it does come together at the end.
Good.

Boring. The case file sections were annoying and did nothing for the book. Didn't like the way it was written and it just didn't grab me and hook me in. Kept waiting for something exciting to happen but was disappointed.

A woman has gone missing, she disappeared from the playground where her children were playing. She seems to have vanished into thin air. Then a lawyer is found stabbed to death. DC Leah Makay and her brother DS Finn Hale aren’t used to this type of violence in their little village. When the woman, Selena, is found less than 24 hours later with blood on her clothing, Leah and Finn wonder if she had a part in the lawyer’s death. But Leah can’t remember anything that happened to her. Is she a victim or a killer and does her past as a hostage negotiator have anything to do with the kidnap and murder? Plenty of twists and turns kept me turning the pages of this thriller