He's Gone

HE'S GONE ... an intriguing title which drew me secondary to the cover of this book. What I found was not what I had expected.

HE'S GONE ... refers to the very young boy who disappears while shopping at a mall with his nanny. Ben is very bright for his age, but no match for any adult with horrible thoughts in their head. In this instance, the camera shows Ben being lead out by the hand of a woman.

HE'S GONE ... can also refer to the lead investigator, Robyn Bailley, who is just returning from a medical leave. Before her leave, she was known as Roger Bailley. Now that she is divorced and has been for years, Robyn has decided now is the time to do something for herself. She has always felt uncomfortable being a man.

She must live and work as a woman for a year before further surgical, hormonal changes can be done. So on her first day back, she is handed the case of the missing toddler. Facing her co-workers is hard. Most are very accepting of her changes, some not so much. By the end of the day, though, the 5:00 shadow is showing and she looks a mess. She's learning that it's not as easy being a woman as she thought it might be.

This is a two prong book ..... it is certainly a crime fiction and the investigation leads into many roads to determine what happened to baby Ben, especially as Ben's mother is acting nonchalant and unworried about the child. The police are not even sure that Ben is still alive...days after his kidnapping there have been no sightings. There has also been no ransom demand ...so who would want to take Ben? and Why?

And then there is the actions/reactions of not only his superiors, but members of his team, his teenage daughter who definitely doesn't understand and even the media, to deal with. The author has certainly done her research on those who wish to transform from man to woman. The book is very well written, conversations were realistic as were reactions. The title is spot on.

Many thanks to the author / Impress Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this unique books. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Alex Clare wrote a great novel that actually makes police procedurals interesting and brings something new to the genre by featuring a transgendered detective. What really made this good is that Clare didn’t just jump on the bandwagon by incorporating gender dysphoria into her work to get views, she wrote a storyline that is actually worth reading. It was to see the topic treated with respect and not cheapened into an attention grabbing plot device.

Clare has you jumping into the action from the beginning so you immediately get hooked and won’t want to put the book down. Then she threw in a plot twist you won’t see coming and adds to the unpredictability of the story.

I liked her character work as she created some amiable people you can root for along with the endearing Robyn who was still trying to navigate her journey from life as Roger. Along with trying to learn to outwardly be the woman she’s always felt she was inside, she has to deal with colleagues who always knew her as a man and she gets thrown into the case of a missing child. Of course there was the requisite bitchy character I would ‘accidentally’ knock into moving traffic due to her treatment of Robyn.

I’m hoping this is the first in a decently long series so we get to learn more about Robyn and watch her evolve.

A well thought out and researched story. Robyn is written about sensitively and and compassionately. I would have liked the book to have been longer and there to have been more detail about the case and other police procedures. Still a good book and I would read another one.