Kindle British & Irish Mystery Book Club discussion

Without a Trace, by Malcolm Forsythe

"A RACE AGAINST TIME TO FIND A LITTLE GIRL.

Eight-year-old Maisie Brown, a blonde, blue-eyed drum majorette, is kidnapped on the day of Tanniford’s annual fête. One moment she’s there, talking to her friend Vicki, the next she’s gone.

Chief Inspector Millson suspects Maisie’s stepfather. He dislikes stepfathers. His own daughter has one and he resents having to arrange with him when he can see her.

Tanniford lies on the bend of a river. The only road out is over the railway bridge. And the local police had closed that road to traffic during the fête. So no vehicle could have left between two and six.

Therefore — whether or not it was Maisie’s stepfather — Millson is convinced that she was abducted by someone in the village. And that she’s still there — dead or alive."

Link to Book on Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/4ayaa2w

A bit surprised to encounter majorettes in Essex. I’d thought that marching bands were a northern English regional activity, based on that marvellous scene in the film Get Carter. It starred Michael Caine and is my pick for greatest British gangster movie ever. Based on Ted Lewis’s Jack’s Return Home, but the film’s better.

I enjoyed reading this. While I like forensics and the role they play in police procedurals, I do enjoy the older books where there was less 'science' and more old fashioned questioning and thinking and more thinking.
Worked out the who (process of elimination) but not the why.