Reviewed by Ian Lipke
Sara Foster is beginning to establish herself as an author who contributes a little bit extra to her stories. Her latest book, When She Was Gone, is an excellent example of a story that appears straight forward but, as each event or piece of knowledge is revealed so too are complications that heretofore lay unsuspected. Her books contain complicated, vulnerable and conflicted characters whose weaknesses seem most likely to defeat them. Yet their strengths, more often than not, hidden until revealed by some crisis within the plot, can be marshalled into a successful outcome.
The storyline is reasonably simple. Former police officer, Rose Campbell, is notified in London where she lives that her estranged daughter has disappeared from a remote Western Australian beach. The police suspect her of kidnapping two young children in her care, and ask Rose, the mother, to assist in the search.
A media storm intensifies around the neck of DSS Mal Blackwood, the officer in charge of the search. The children are part of the extended family of the multimillionaire Joe Fisher, his obnoxious son and various wives and relatives.
The interest in the story lies in the power plays of the Fisher family who, never having experienced opposition before finds coping with an independent minded police officer very frustrating. Furthermore, the issue of misogynistic treatment of women is given free rein to complicate an already busy plot.
In Sara Foster’s hands we are treated to an engaging plot, more than adequately controlling characters, strong in their desire to force their ways upon the main characters and their views. What makes this plot unique are the family relationship dynamics that occupy so much of the author’s, and hence the reader’s, attention. Kyle, the loudmouthed son, is satisfied only when his bullying turns other family members into quivering, frightened wrecks. Yet Kyle fails to see that he is, and continues to remain, his father’s puppet. Frannie Fisher, as representative of the Fisher women, sees the Fisher name solely in terms of real estate which she continues to show to acquaintances. Bree and Carmela involve the police in their search for a daughter because “if I let the police come in all guns blazing, Reid will go mad and hurt people” (267). A rather dubious piece of honest reasoning. The Fisher family derives much pleasure from loading down their employees with backbreaking burdens of work while they fill their days with excessive amounts of alcohol.
This is a story that grasps your stomach muscles and does not let go, however much you hurt. It has particularly strong characters, whether they are cast as behaving well or badly. They are interesting, flawed, and nuanced. The construction of the plot…in fact, all aspects of the book is absurdly good.
Read the book is my best advice.
When She Was Gone
(2025)
by Sara Foster
Harper Collins
ISBN:978-1-4607-6039-0
$34.99; 336pp