From the outset, Malcolm’s frustration with both cases is palpable-until Frieda enters his office and tells him of Alan’s strange and acute longing to have a child of his own.Īs Alan’s fantasies vie for prominence with Frieda’s own romantic needs, the fragments of memories compete with strange coincidences and Karlsson's odd feelings of half-baked intuition that eventually expose a whisper of dual personalities. The author effects a gritty, waste-strewn London where underground characters lurk beneath its streets, quickly becoming the stuff of nightmares. A “real copper” with an innate sense of justice, Malcolm decides to review the two cases separated by twenty-two years and joined together by nothing more than the fact that both kids were the same age and vanished without a trace in the middle of the day.įrench's tense novel is strong on graphic plot and dialogue. Alan’s anguished confidences drive Frieda to seek out the advice of foul-mouthed, no-nonsense DCI Malcolm Karlsson.

Plagued by dreams of having a son with red hair, Alan’s confessions take on a new and startling meaning when Frieda opens the paper and reads about Matthew. What sets Matthew’s disappearance apart from a multitude of ill-fated missing children is Frieda’s sessions with Alan Dekker, who has come to see her because he’s been suffering from severe and recurrent anxiety. Consultant psychoanalyst Frieda Klein is oblivious to the tragedy that played out over twenty yearsīefore when she learns from the paper that red-haired Matthew Faraday has vanished in circumstances eerily similar to Joanna’s. Deborah learns to let go by starting a new family, while Richard-chaotic and unchanging in his grief-descends into drink, silently waiting for his little girl to return.Īlthough Joanna Vine’s case is never actually closed, there is gradually less and less to report. But no trace of Joanna is ever found,Īnd the girl's presence becomes a ghost, melting into the past like a wisp of memory or a forgotten celebrity. While the sun appears low in the sky and shadows lay over streets and houses, a frantic search of theĬity center turns into a coordinated operation. With her dark hair, thin face and one chipped tooth, Joanna’s inexplicable loss begins a never-ending nightmare of recrimination and sadness.

In Blue Monday, author Nicci French posits the searing emotional wasteland of London one hot summer afternoon in 1987.įive-year-old Joanna Vine goes missing outside a sweetshop, leaving her sister, Rose, devastated and her parents, Deborah and Richard, unable to comprehend the tragedy or the despair. Book review: Nicci French's *Blue Monday*

Blue monday a frieda klein mystery