"My heart was in my mouth as the tension ratcheted up, but Bartlett balances the fast pace with great tenderness, exploring what happens when family loyalty and love is put to the ultimate test. A brilliant debut."
P M Newton, author of Beams Falling & The Old School
David Kingsgrove is a man on a mission. An ordinary man - and an extraordinary mission. It is a mission that will turn him into someone he never thought he would be: the king of the road, the loner on the highway, the crusader for a sort of justice he has never before had to seek.
Andrew had been a regular visitor to David's home right up until the day he disappeared, walking out the front door to visit a neighbour. It doesn't take long for the police to decide that David - a single man in his thirties, living alone - is their suspect. Soon Andrew's parents will share that opinion. But David knows that he didn't take Andrew.
Realising that the only way Andrew will be found is if he finds him - the police, after all, are fixated on David as their suspect and are not looking anywhere else - David turns to the one person who he knows will help him: Matty an ex-cop now his personal trainer, whose own son disappeared several years before. David's crusade to find Andrew will also take him into his own dark heart - to do things he never thought he would have to do, and go places he has never wanted to go.
And the choices David makes lead us all to ask: How far would I go to save someone I love? This is a compelling story that is almost impossible to stop reading - a hero's journey, of sorts, with a momentum that is breathtaking even while the subject matter is confronting.