What Was Lost

by: Catherine O'Flynn

Published by: Henry Holt and Company

Reviewed by Sharon Broom

It’s England in the 1980s–and loner Kate Meaney is a bright, inquisitive child who is passionate about being a junior detective. She is also a child who has been dealt a difficult hand. Kate doesn’t have a mother, her father dies and she’s left with an inattentive grandmother who allows her to come and go as she pleases.

One day Kate leaves her home to take an academic test and simply goes missing. Her adult friend Adrian is the last to see her and thus becomes a suspect. His life and the lives of others change forever following her disappearance.

The book forwards twenty years and a security guard at Green Oaks shopping mall sees a child carrying a stuffed monkey on the security camera. It appears to be Kate. Adrian’s sister, Lisa works at the mall and befriends Kurt (security guard). Together they investigate the disappearance of Kate Meaney.

What Was Lost is a dark novel that tells Kate’s story and then begins to meander through the lives and minds of people who were peripherally connected to Kate. The plot is stunning and the book is well written, but the story seems more suited to that of a novella than novel.

Armchair Interviews says: Each reader must decide for themselves about this novel.