Wow! As I was reading the book, I thought about possible endings to the story, but I was definitely surprised by what actually happened. The author does a great job of expressing the frustration of Harry and Zara at the lack of progress by the police in finding their missing daughter, Sophie, and by the protocols that the police must follow, as well as the desperation and emotional devastation they feel at the continued absence of their daughter.

In the weeks since Sophie disappeared, Harry has spoken to at least one person in every household along the nine roads that Sophie could have taken to leave the neighborhood before reaching a main road with traffic cameras and CCTV. The only household where Harry cannot get an answer is Number 210 on their own street, owned by John Douglas Herman. That house is also more closed off than all the other houses -- high-walled front garden, tall wooden gates with a padlock, heavy curtains, etc. Harry and Zara begin to suspect that Herman knows something about Sophie's disappearance, and Harry takes increasingly risky and illegal actions to find answers, but even when he discovers information that suggests Herman is a viable suspect, the police will not act because the information/evidence lacks the proper chain of custody that would be needed if charges would be brought and/or is not sufficient to obtain a warrant or make an arrest.

Herman will end up murdered, but is the killer Harry, Zara, both of them together, or someone else? A significant portion of the story focuses on the murder trial of Harry and Zara, and the prosecution's argument that they planned and carried out the murder together. However, proving the joint enterprise will be difficult, especially as Harry and Zara have dealt with Sophie's disappearance in different ways and have not shared everything they have learned or done with each other. In fact, Harry has gone to great lengths to try to keep his actions isolated from his wife, so that she cannot be implicated in the things he does.

I would like to say that I would never do or attempt to do some of the things that Harry and Zara do or are suspected of doing. However, if something happened to one of my children, I would go to great lengths to get them back or protect them, and the pressure to cross legal or moral lines, if necessary, would be high. I think that is one of the most appealing aspects of the story -- Harry and Zara are taking the actions that, as parents, we would want to be able to take if we were facing their situation. The detailed planning by Harry and Zara, and the legal machinations, are also enjoyable as well.

This book gets off to a slow start, and doesn’t much pick up until the end. I think the plot had a lot of potential, but the chapter lengths and time jumps just took me out of the story too much to be able to enjoy it. Overall, I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading if the synopsis appeals. But I wouldn’t include it in my list of recs.

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted (free) ARC

Name of Book: Finding Sophie
Author: Imran Mahmood
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine Bantam Books
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Pub Date: March 5, 2024
Rating 4,3 Stars!
Pages: 352

Sophie is a typical seventeen year old and as like many teens wants to spread her wings and believes her parent are ‘old fashion and over protective” so decides to leave home-with typical teenage angst sets out however does NOT returned home.

Told from the POV of parents Harry and Zara.
They are not pleased with the police investigation and set out to question neighbors to see if anyone saw anything suspicious; everyone except for the neighbor at 210.who has refused to open his door much less speak to him. Harry is convinced that this man knows exactly what happened.
They decided to take the matter in their own hands and did what they had to do to find her.

Next part of the story is Zara is being accused of murdering Mr. Herman the neighbor at 210 as both she and Harry believe he kidnapped and killed Sophie.

This turned out to be a WOW read!!!

My first read by Imran Mahmood but I will read another – that’s for sure!

Want to thank NetGalley and Bantam Books for this early uncorrected proof.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 5, 2024.

It’s always when life is so darn perfect, something completely unexpected happens. It’s like the Gods want to play with your mind. Well, this is a doozy.

Seventeen-year-old, Sophie, doesn’t come home one afternoon after school. The police are involved until it seems to be a dead end. Yet, her parents, Harry and Zara, will do everything it takes to find their beautiful daughter.

It shows how something like this can test and unravel a relationship between the parents. They both have secrets and focused on only one thing: finding Sophie. While reading, one can feel the difficulty it is to raise a teenager even when you think you’re providing a grounded, loving home.

The book starts with a legal case. It sets the tone of the book and makes the reader know that something major will be happening in the south part of London. I like how the father was even willing to get a tarot card reading beyond his beliefs. The characters were interesting even though parts were slow. It’s a solid whodunit with an unsuspected ending.

My thanks to Bantam and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy of this advanced book with an expected release date of March 5, 2024.

Not for me as a reader. Disjointed and I did not like the writing style. Might be for others but it was not for me as I struggled to connect with the story.

Boy did I enjoy reading this book. It is dark. The emotion felt through the writing of Harry and Zara's narrative is palpable. Sophie has gone missing. This is the story of how her parents deal with it and the drama that follows. The undercurrent is grief, but I wanted to come back to the book every evening to continue the story. Your heart hurts for these people and sometimes those books are difficult for me to read, but this one flowed like water. The use of descriptors and the sheer emotion makes this book utterly readable. And the depth of plot and the meticulous storyline add even more to the delicious words. I truly didn't know how it would end until I got there. A most excellent thriller and I highly recommend Finding Sophie.

I was given a prepub ebook for my honest review, which I gladly share. I will very likely seek out more by this author to dive into more of his words.

This sounded so good and right up my alley but I just couldn’t get into it. I wanted to like it more but it just wasn’t for me!

For the last seventeen years, Harry and Zara King’s lives have revolved around their only daughter, Sophie. One day, Sophie leaves the house and doesn’t come home. Six weeks later, the police are no closer to finding her than when they started. Harry and Zara have questioned everyone who has ever had any connection to Sophie, to no avail. Except there’s one house on their block—number 210, across the street—whose occupant refuses to break his silence.
Someone knows what happened. As the question mark over number 210 devolves into obsession, Harry and Zara are forced to examine their own lives. They realize they have grown apart, suffering in separate spheres of grief. And as they try to find their way back to each other, they must face the truth about their daughter: who she was, how she changed, and why she disappeared. Someone will pay. Told in the alternating perspectives of Harry and Zara, and in a dual timeline between the weeks after Sophie’s disappearance and a year later in the middle of a murder trial, Imran Mahmood’s taut yet profoundly moving novel explores how differently grief can be experienced even when shared by parents—and how hope triumphs when it springs from the kind of love that knows no bounds.
Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for giving me an advance copy.

A very heart wrenching story surrounding every parents’ nightmare. A teenage daughter goes missing. As time marches on and the chances of finding her alive get slimmer and slimmer the parents’ lives are literally falling apart. The worst part is their life together is falling apart. They can’t find a way back to each other. As they realize this they take desperate measures to try to come to some kind of closure and rectify and justify what each is about to do. Very intense, sad, nail biting.

I was honestly so surprised how much I loved this. The beginning was a bit slow but after it picked up I FLEW through this. 5/5 for sure

For the last seventeen years, Harry and Zara King’s lives have revolved around their only daughter, Sophie. One day, Sophie leaves and doesn't come back. There begins the questions, the obsessions, and the grief of 2 parents. Harry and Zara realize that they have grown apart, can they come back together? What happened with Sophie? How did she change and why did they not know or realize how she changed? These are the questions that must be answered to find some peace for Harry and Zara.

Thank you Netgalley. This was a fantastic read! The bond of family is strong and thoughtful throughout the book. The mystery of Sophie was spectacularly down and kept me on the edge. The ending was surprising and blew me away. Highly recommend

Just finished this book, was excited because the synopsis sounded great, and for the first half of the book it was very hard to put it down and I was waiting to find out more about where Sophie could be.
But this book was SO WORDY, and I was so lost when the trial started.
And while I understand that father was having trouble saying Sophie's name, it was so hard to follow when you'd see the "S---" during his perspective.

Unfortunately this book was so disappointing, I was skipping huge chunks of paragraphs and pages just to get to some kind of result. I'd had higher hopes when the book was offered to me, but I really wouldn't recommend it.

This book is told in alternating chapters between a husband and wife as they search for their missing daughter. The book is told both in the past and present, with the husband and wife narrating in both time periods. The "past" ones were labeled for who the narrator was, but the "present" ones weren't, which made it a bit confusing. You'd have to wait until you read "Harry's lawyer..." or "Zara looked down" to figure out who was that chapter's narrator.

In the past, they're obsessed with a resident at house 210 who they're convinced was involved with their daughter's disappearance because the resident refuses to speak with them. That's it. Obviously he must be hiding something since he won't talk to them. The husband buys a drone a flies it into the guy's house, the husband destroys part of the guy's fence to break into the guy's house to "look around" since he's sure he'll find evidence of his daughter. At one point, the husband starts beating up the guy.

The parents (especially the dad) felt unhinged. I tried so hard to be sympathetic to them as they're dealing with one of the worst things that a parent can experience, but they were not likeable at all. Before the daughter disappeared, they padlocked her into her room because they didn't want her going out one night, and this was their solution vs, ya know, talking to her. They wouldn't let her get a job at a restaurant because the manager was leering at her. They kept saying that they were doing everything to protect her, but it felt excessive and I kept thinking that if the daughter ran away, I would understand it.

The book was a bit of a slog, especially in the first half. The chapters were short which made the constant POV jumps a bit jarring. I understand that the book won't give us everything upfront, but this felt a bit overdone with the "SOMETHING HAPPENED!! NOW WAIT 50 PAGES TO FIND OUT WHAT IT WAS!!" way of telling the story.

Ultimately, it was an okay read. It could be worse, could be better.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this advance review copy.

I’m afraid I didn’t share many other folks’ views on this one: I found this to be a slog. The quality of writing is fine, and the two main characters are sympathetic, I was just bored and really had to force myself to get through this. Even in the last third of the novel, which involved tense court room scenes, I had to work to focus. I did want to find out what happened, but finding out was painful for me.

We meet Harry and Zara six weeks after their only child, their daughter, Sophie, has gone missing. Police don’t seem to have any clues. Harry and Zara, who are both schoolteachers, are spending all their time trying to find her. They’ve asked everyone in the area if they have any information, and all but one person has done their best to help. The neighbor Herman won’t talk to them or to the police. I agree that it’s strange he wouldn’t at least say he doesn’t know anything. If he was innocent, why look suspicious by being a jerk? If he’s guilty, why not at least lie? But Harry and Zara go a little crazy focusing on him.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES MARCH 5, 2024.

This story opens with a trial but who exactly is on trial?
Harry and Zara’s teenage daughter Sofie is missing. You’ve canvassed the neighborhood for any shred of information but the house at 210 won’t open their door or talk to anyone about what they may or may not know with regard to the missing girl. Harry and Zara are stunned to learn the secrets Sofie has been keeping. She’s been dealing drugs and there is a boyfriend only know as “D” that they’ve known nothing about. What lengths will they go to in order to find out what happened to Sofie? Will emotions rule the mind or will common sense prevail? This book contains difficult subject matter and a few interesting turns that I didn’t see coming. I admit it took me a while to decide to rate this 5 stars as I’m normally a little stingy about high ratings. This ARC was provided by Random House Publishing Group via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book to read and review. All thoughts are my own.

“It is better to let nine guilty people go free than convict one innocent person of a crime that he or she did not commit.”

I really loved the idea of this book. I think the plot was intriguing and I think some of the characters, especially the parents were awesome. Other characters not so much. I found a lot lacking with their story, part , and character.

This book switches between present time in court and past tense leading up to the murder and during the murder. I will say I’ve never read a book like this and I really enjoyed it. It was a tad slow up until around 2/3 of the way but still held my attention none the less.

If you like crime, courtroom settings, and the judicial system, then I recommend this for you!

This was a well written and thought out book. I would put it more in the genre of family drama than thriller. It was at times a little slow but the end was very fast paced and surprising. A definite 3 star read.

Harry and Zara's teenaged daughter, Sophie, has been missing for 6 weeks. The case has gone cold with no leads, so Harry begins his own investigation. As each of them are torn apart by grief, their marriage unravels. The police don't seem to take their concerns seriously, so Harry's methods become more and more unethical as he looks into their creepy and reclusive neighbor. The story switches back and forth from 6 weeks after Sophie went missing to a year later, when their neighbor has been murdered and Harry and Zara were on trial.
Finding Sophie is a heartbreaking exploration of grief, the love that parents have for their children, and the lengths that parents will go to for their children. Harry and Zara are likable characters, even as they fall apart while dealing with every parent's worst nightmare. This is a slow paced book with lots of heavy topics, so it doesn't make for an easy or lighthearted read. There are some interesting legal debates and courtroom scenes that helped offset the slower sections. The ending wasn't a big twist per se but was definitely unexpected.
Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

Harry and Zara King, two teachers, with a 17 year old daughter, Sophie, endure what no parent should ever have to.

Sophie goes missing.

Zara is lost in a sea of pain and hopelessness. Harry on the other hand has made it his duty to find his daughter. He has interviewed every person that has ever been connected to Sophie including their entire neighborhood to see if anyone saw anything suspicious. Everyone except for the neighbor at 210. The neighbor at 210 has refused to open his door much less speak to him. Harry is convinced that this man knows exactly what happened to Sophie and he will not let him get away with it. Laws be damned.

Whoa! This book was incredible. I was so completely invested in this family. They're pain was palpable and it made my own heart ache. The writing was absolutely beautiful. So many highlight worthy quotes. A few passages I had to reread just to savor them. That's when you know you are reading a real gem. As I was reading this I was thinking this was a really strong 4 star book but that ending. My goodness. It catapulted this straight to 5 stars. I can't even believe that this was Mahmood's debut novel. I am so impressed. Highest recommendation. 5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for my complimentary copy.