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Missing, Presumed cover art

Missing, Presumed

By: Susie Steiner
Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
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Summary

Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date - the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace.

Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman - door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body. And as soon as she sees a picture of Edith Hind, a Cambridge postgraduate from a well-connected family, she knows this case will be big.

Is Edith alive or dead? Was her 'complex love life' at the heart of her disappearance, as a senior officer tells the increasingly hungry press? And when a body is found, is it the end or only the beginning?

©2015 Susie Steiner (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Gripping, authentic, funny and moving, Missing, Presumed hits the sweet spot between literary and crime fiction. The plot is gripping, with a twist that knocked me sideways, swiftly followed by another one that knocked me back in the other direction. More than that, the characters became dear friends over the course of the book. I'm already looking forward to the next one." (Erin Kelly)
"DS Manon Bradshaw is a messed-up, big-hearted detective in the best tradition." (Harriet Lane)
"Within a chapter, DS Manon Bradshaw announces herself as a detective to follow through books and books to come. A treat in store for those who love their crime fiction rich in psychology, beautifully written and laced with dark humour. Dive in." (Lucie Whitehouse)

What listeners say about Missing, Presumed

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Really disappointing

The book had a really weak story, I didn't really like the writing style and kept hanging on thinking it would get better, but it didn't.

Gutted

10 people found this helpful

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Great story.

Loved it. Great story. Great characters. Good narrator apart from the Scottish accent! I'm off to see if there are others in the series.

10 people found this helpful

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RETURNING UNFINISHED - just could not get into it

I wanted to like this book but it just did not grip me - wanted to like Manon - but could not quite manage that either. I came back to it several times to try and continue reading but just felt it was not getting any better and so many great books out there it felt like a waste of time to struggle on with one that I just could not get into.

8 people found this helpful

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Poorly narrated

Some well drawn characters but overall a weak plot with too many cliches, "to be fair" twice in the first paragraph. Most irritating of all was the narration, which was obviously not checked by editors. The narrator seemed nervous, inexperienced and self conscious, putting full stops after each word at times and misunderstanding word and sentence stress. Not at all a relaxing listen, maybe I would have enjoyed this book more if I'd read it rather than listened.

8 people found this helpful

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Amongst the most dreadful books ever

I rarely write reviews unless the books are superb or dire and this book unfortunately belongs to the latter. I have a rule that I must finish any book I start and I did finish this but with the utmost difficulty.The story line was weak and the style pretentious. I believe that authors write in the present tense to make their stories more urgent or exciting but in this case it did neither. The characterization was so poor as to be beyond belief and the attempt to tell the story through the eyes of the main characters fell flat on its face as the authoress does not have the ability to write in this manner. I read a recommendation for " Missing Presumed" in the Guardian only later to discover that the authoress had once been a journalist writing in that newspaper a position she would have been well advised not to leave. The narration was mediocre and I will not be looking out for any more books either written by Susie Steiner or narrated by Juanita McMahon. This book is definitely not reccommended!

7 people found this helpful

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Boooooooring!

Nothing to do with the story of a disappearing girl or any crime at all. Just a telling of an insanely boring female detective and her insaaaaanley boring life. Omg don't waste your time.

7 people found this helpful

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Disappointing

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

It was okay but nothing to get excited about. I kept waiting for it to warm up but sadly it didn't.

Would you recommend Missing, Presumed to your friends? Why or why not?

No, I don't think so. I wouldn't put them off it but I wouldn't recommend it either.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Sometimes it was hard to tell between different characters and although the narrator has a nice tone of voice, her Scottish and Irish accents were unbelievably bad.

Do you think Missing, Presumed needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Not for me. I found the main character to be one of the most irritating in the book.

Any additional comments?

Aside from poor narration, the biggest problem was that some of the lead characters came across more like caricatures. They just didn't seem like real people so inevitably I didn't warm to them or care about them.

7 people found this helpful

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Boring

I was disappointed and am going to return this book. There is nothing and no one that grabs my sympathy or attention. I really don't care for the characters or the plot.

This is probably just not my cup of tea. Some of the reviews were more positive so it must be my personal, biased opinion.

5 people found this helpful

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Great story, not so great narration.

This book is so well written, with richly drawn, flawed characters. Whilst dealing with serious crime, the main Protagonist, DS Manon Bradshaw, is a highly competent professional, but she is particularly bad in dealing with her love life. There were at least a couple of times whilst listening that I was shouting ‘don’t do it’ in my head! She is, as are we all, just a complex, fallible human being.

Juanita McMahon is usually a very good narrator, but she dropped her usual standard here. The Irish and Scottish accents she produced are awful. She voiced Alan Prendagast, a love interest of Manon, as if he was in his 70s, when he is said to be 42, and young, streetwise Fly, aged 10 as if he we a much younger child, then only a year later as if he were an archetypal yob in his 20s, despite him being described as in the gifted range of intelligence and a sensitive boy. I hope she does a better job with the second book in the series, which I am now going on to listen to.

4 people found this helpful

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  • VJ
  • 17-03-18

More and More Please!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book in all respects!
Although the plot is of a serious nature, I laughed out loud on several occasions (much to my family’s surprise) - the dry witted asides certainly appeals to my sense of humour.
Off to get the next book now - the second of many I hope!

2 people found this helpful

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  • ACT1
  • 04-08-17

Must listen to the sample

Very mediocre which was a shame as I had listened to the author on a local radio program and it was set close to my home.

First bugbear and it was my own fault - I cannot stand stories written in the present tense. They grate on me so much that I cannot get past the tense and into the story with ease.
I don't much like female narrators either, especially when they properly read every word and are somewhat prissy into the bargain. This one wasn't great at male voices and her accents, especially the Scots, were haphazard.

Beyond all that, the premise of the story was interesting - was she missing or was she dead? The main female lead was far too emotionally flakey for a middle level police officer and she stepped over the line with her emotional entanglements with players, witnesses, on the fringe of the story line. I wanted to smack her several times.

Of course one had to tick all the PC boxes - the lesbian relationship, the gay relationship, the heroic villain and the good black person. It'd be nice to read something without the "gay is normal and widespread" mantra being thrust down ones throat.

It was well over long, I think the author sought to enlist the aid of every descriptor known to man (or woman) - it could have been reduced by 1/3 and no one would have noticed.

I still ask myself why I bothered with it - apathy and no other good yarns on my iPhone at the time but I won't be getting the next in the series where the flakey, now DI, seems to have got herself knocked up. This book really irritated me - I don't usually write reviews!

1 person found this helpful

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  • Angela Lambson
  • 15-05-23

Entertaining read!

Good absorbing story, well narrated with likeable, believable characters and some laugh-out-loud lines. Will definitely be downloading the other books in the series.

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  • Amazon Customer
  • 08-06-21

if you're looking for mysteries, then search on.

This is not a crime novel, more of a character gallery of pretty uninteresting people. The tempo is so slow I kept looking at the "time remaining"-meter wondering when it whould pick up. I'm not one for fast paced books with lots of action, so for me to be bored with a story is quite the achievement.
The main character is sort of dull. She's portrayed as this vulnerable yet clever woman in the middle of a midlife crisis. But her story is so boring I can't even remember her name (finished the book 30 min ago). The writing is okay, there are some nice depictions in there, but far from enough to make an interesting read.