It was meant to be your daughter’s first sleepover.
Now it’s an abduction.
Lucia Blix went home from school for a playdate with her new friend Josie. Later that evening, Lucia’s mother Elisa dropped her overnight things round and kissed her little girl goodnight.
That was the last time she saw her daughter.
The next morning, when Lucia’s dad arrived to pick her up, the house was empty. No furniture, no family, no Lucia.
In Playdate, Alex Dahl puts a microscope on a seemingly average, seemingly happy family plunged into a life-altering situation. Who has taken their daughter, and why?
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I received a copy of this book from Headof Zeus via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
My Thoughts….
This story painstakingly explores a parents’ worse nightmare. The suspense builds from the first pages and increases to an almost painful intensity. Elisa loses her child, but she’s hiding something making her difficult to empathise.
This story is told from multi-points of view, but are any of the viewpoints reliable? The intricate plot is slow-paced in keeping with the Nordic Noir genre. It’s possible to work out the motivations for Lucia’s abduction, but the plot keeps its mystery until the end. It’s absorbing and atmospheric with a realistic ending.
Alex Dahl is a half-American, half-Norwegian author. Born in Oslo, she studied Russian and German linguistics with international studies, then went on to complete an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University and an MSc in business management at Bath University. A committed Francophile, Alex loves to travel and has so far lived in Moscow, Paris, Stuttgart, Sandefjord, Switzerland, Bath and London. Her first thriller, The Boy at the Door, was a Sunday Times Crime Club star pick.
Jane Hunt Writer 