Among the Missing

A Novel

By: Morag Joss

Narrated by: Robin Sachs, Kate Reading, Cassandra Campbell

“Whenever an accident or natural disaster occurs from which bodies may never be recovered, there is always somebody for whom it becomes a chance to disappear. There is always somebody who, believing that vanishing from one life is the way to enter a better one, will choose to be presumed among the missing; somebody who would rather be thought dead than have to say ‘I’m leaving you.'”

A pregnant woman, believed killed in a bridge accident in the Scottish Highlands, seizes her chance to disappear from her uncaring husband. Determined to safeguard her baby’s future and reinvent herself, she befriends illegal immigrant Silva, whose husband Stefan and daughter Anna, as she alone knows, have died in her place. As the bridge is rebuilt, the two women build a precarious existence in a makeshift home by the river. While Silva waits for Stefan and Anna’s return, and the pregnant woman awaits the birth of her child, they are helped by the boatman, Ron, whose devotion to them masks his guilt for a past disaster for which he must atone.

Each of them having crossed some bridge in retreat from the world, each seeking an ever-elusive peace of mind and struggling with displacement and grief, together the three exiles conjure an unstable mix of trust and distrust, compounded by love and jealousy, both parental and sexual. With the discovery of Stefan’s and Anna’s bodies in the river, the tension in their uneasy triangle mounts inexorably and unbearably. With the birth of the new baby only days, then hours away, it finally breaks.

©2011 Morag Joss (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This remarkable novel has an abundance of suspense at its core, put forth in beautiful prose that all but glows on the page…. The author keeps a jittery tension going as the novel spins toward its violent, grand-scaled finale. Like most thrillers with a literary bent, this one spends time with the thoughts and feelings of the characters. In lesser hands, this can be stultifying, especially if the people aren’t that interesting. But these two women have fascinating inner lives, and Joss details them in vivid, propulsive language." ( Booklist)

The Lamest Ending EVER!!

Great narration and interesting up until the very end at which point Ms. Joss decided she was tired of writing this book and ended it. Abruptly and weakly.

loved it

could not stop listening. moved quickly but gripped me from the first words. I liked the set up of three distinctively different narrators. Just wish it did not end.

Transfixing book, superb performances

Morag Joss is new to me. I'm happy to have more of her books in my future! The three main characters are deftly developed and their joint story is unusual and fascinating. I have to disagree with the previous reviewer about the narrators. I'll listen to anything narrated by Robin Sachs (got on to him with the Jo Nesbo books); Kate Reading is an old favorite and Cassandra Campbell a happy new discovery.

I was late to several appointments because I couldn't stop listening.

Transfixing book, superb performances

Morag Joss is new to me. I'm happy to have more of her books in my future! The three main characters are deftly developed and their joint story is unusual and fascinating. I have to disagree with the previous reviewer about the narrators. I'll listen to anything narrated by Robin Sachs (got on to him with the Jo Nesbo books); Kate Reading is an old favorite and Cassandra Campbell a happy new discovery.

I was late to several appointments because I couldn't stop listening.

narrator ruins book

Morag Joss is a good writer but she is sadly ill-served by the female narrator of this book. The reader struggles to approximate some sort of British accent and succeeds only in distracting the listener from the story. The reader fails even further when the listener realizes that the protagonist is Scottish!