whitneydaniell

Summary

Lucy has spent the summer in Texas, away from her parents in England, and her mother, Simone, is desperate to make up for lost time and enjoy the last bit of the summer camping in the desert with her. Simone has been counting down the days to this trip in her phone.

Finally landing in Texas, Simone first has to find her luggage, which somehow doesn’t make it to baggage claim. After flagging down a border patrol agent to grab her missing bag, she is ready to head off to a remote lodge for some relaxation and fun, and Lucy will meet her there. Their plan is to stay overnight at the lodge and then begin their mother–daughter camping holiday the next day. But when Simone wakes the next morning, she’s alone in the lodge—Lucy is gone.

Everything in Lucy’s room is just as it was when they arrived, including her phone and Crocs. Simone knows something is wrong, and her suspicions are confirmed when a burner flip phone is found in Lucy’s room—and begins to ring. Simone’s worst nightmare has just begun. Someone has Lucy, and to get her back, she must do something for the kidnapper.

Now racing against the clock, Simone follows instructions: don’t call the police, come alone. She calls her husband, Damien, to clue him in. He immediately books a flight to Texas and urges Simone to contact the police and not go at this alone—much to her dismay. But Simone knows the only way to save Lucy is to comply. There is nothing she wouldn’t do for her daughter.

As the clock ticks, the games begin. The kidnapper is organized and knows how to avoid detection, issuing instructions via burner phones and reminding Simone she’s being watched. Simone, an accidental chef-turned-restaurateur, isn’t a skilled criminal, but somehow she has to get her daughter back. How far is too far when your child is at stake?

To save Lucy, Simone has nothing to lose—and it will take everything she has.

Character Summary

Simone and Damien Seaborn own a restaurant, Plates, which—like many restaurants—has its ups and downs. Simone started out in the back of the house, taking a break while chopping vegetables, then studying under their chef and eventually curating her own menu items. Damien, previously an HR professional at a law firm, was bored with his dead-end corporate job and wanted something else. Using the money from an app Simone sold, they funded their restaurant.

Their daughter, Lucy, is an aspiring actress who has been accepted into RADA—the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art—in the fall. Because her unconditional offer came with an advisory that she needed to learn to sing, she spent the summer at a singing camp in Texas.

My Thoughts

This one took me completely by surprise. There’s a glaring red herring that I bought into from the start—and I was completely wrong. That’s the kind of thriller I like.

There aren’t a lot of twists and turns. The drama is pretty straightforward: girl kidnapped, mother forced to act for the kidnapper, conflict, drama, resolution. It’s simple when you look at it as a whole, but each of the six parts of the book brings its own set of complex issues.

Early on, I wanted this plot to go in a different direction—something like the movie Compliance (2012) and the true story it’s based on. I thought it would go that route, but there was no sinister backstory; it was cut and dry. I didn’t mind that, but for about 80% of the book I was waiting for something else. Still, when all was revealed, it shocked me—I didn’t see it coming.

Neither Lucy nor Simone are particularly likable, but because of what they endure, you do end up rooting for them. At one point, I noted that Simone’s parenting (or lack thereof) was the reason for Lucy’s behavior—this is what happens when everyone gets participation trophies. Lucy is entitled, lazy, brash, and rude, and her parents coddle her with zero boundaries or consequences. Simone is more concerned with being liked by her daughter than parenting her, which was frustrating. Damien was way too good for both of them!

Most of my gripes came from the writing itself. Many passages are wordy and drag on, filled with Simone’s internal monologues bouncing between memories and present feelings—it’s exhausting. While the chapters are concise, there are a lot of them. For a 336-page book, there are 69 chapters! There’s also repetitive writing: Simone’s internal thoughts are often repeated in dialogue.

The dialogue, though, annoyed me the most. While in Texas, everyone Lucy and Simone speak to—presumably Americans—uses English (UK) phrasing. At one point, the kidnapper, who is presumably American, says: “Go to the original lay-by.” A Texan would never say “lay-by”—they’d say “rest stop.” A Texas lawyer uses words like “holiday” instead of “vacation,” or “the person on the coach” instead of “the person on the bus.” If you’re going to set the book in Texas, at least get the dialogue right.

Continuity issues stood out, too. At one point, Simone turns her phone off, but it later rings without any mention of her turning it back on. If it’s off, it can’t ring. Also, where are these burner Samsung flip phones with GPS mapping and internet browsing? I looked up pay-as-you-go networks and couldn’t find any.

And finally—there’s no way Simone and Lucy would have lasted 24 hours in Texas being as reckless as they were. One helicopter and they’d have been arrested. Whatever happened with the drone? And how many times do we need to hear “CCTV”?!

Final Verdict

If a UK author is going to write a book set in the United States, I expect at least some working knowledge of the culture, language, and people of the region. The U.S. is massive, and Texas alone is 268,597 square miles—five times the size of England. Every area, city, town in Texas has a unique culture, and it felt like McAllister just drove through Terlingua (a tourist destination near Big Bend National Park), picked it as a setting, and skipped the deeper research. No wonder people abroad have skewed perceptions of Americans.

Content-wise, the book is solid. The pacing kept me engaged—I read it in one sitting, well into the night (bedtime be damned). The ending and reveal were satisfying because they were unexpected, and I love a thriller that keeps me on my toes. But the overwritten passages, clunky dialogue, and lack of authentic Texas detail held it back for me. Still a solid 3.5 to 4 star read, I rounded up.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the advanced reader copy of Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister in exchange for my honest review.