Blue Monday

I got totally absorbed in Blue Monday by Nicci French last month. It's a riveting read about a couple of unsolved child abduction cases some 20 years apart, and this fabulous author team sure comes up with enough surprises and clever twists to keep the reader glued to the pages. Even more than the fabulous plot, I fell in love with their very real characters and the beautiful scenes of London in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I couldn't have wished for a better escape from my wintry cold, very rainy, very dreary West Coast weekend - following Frieda and her insomnia through the crisp, dark hours in the never sleeping metropolis! It was the first time I've read a book by the very famous Nicci French - but certainly not the last. - Juliane

Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets...

The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts. And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself.