Gone

WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL• FINALIST FOR THE CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER

“Mo Hayder takes you to the edge, then pushes you over in a heart-pounding rush of a story that will leave you battered and bruised, and wanting more.”—Chevy Stevens, New York Times bestselling author of Still Missing

An excruciatingly suspenseful thriller that follows the investigation of a brilliant and twisted carjacker with a disturbing game to play

He watches. He waits. He takes what isn’t his. 

Detective Inspector Jack Caffery’s newest case seems like a routine carjacking, a crime he’s seen plenty of times before. But as the hours tick by and tormenting letters arrive from the carjacker, he realizes the sickening truth: the thief wasn’t after the car, but the 11-year-old girl in the backseat. Who is still missing. 

Meanwhile, police diver Sergeant Flea Marley is pursuing her own theory of the case, and what she finds in an abandoned, half-submerged tunnel in rural Gloucestershire could put her in grave danger. The carjacker is always a step ahead of the Major Crime Investigation Unit, and Caffery is certain that he is planning to take another car. And another child. As the clock ticks down, Jack and Flea race to fit the pieces together before it’s too late.

Gone is Mo Hayder at her terrifying best. Each dark and captivating twist reveals a new dimension to this tight-knit plot, burrowing deeper into the chilling and clever world Hayder creates.

Mo Hayder’s jobs included filmmaker, Tokyo nightclub hostess, and English language teacher in Asia. She was also the author of Birdman; The Treatment; The Devil of Nanking, winner of the Elle Magazine crime fiction prize; Pig Island, shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel; Ritual, shortlisted both for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award and for the coveted Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award; Skin; and Gone; as well as the winner of the 2011 Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library award for outstanding body of work. She passed away in 2021 at the age of 59.