Set during a summer holiday on a New Zealand beach, a family of two adults, a ten-year old Alix and her fifteen year old sister Vanessa spend their summer enjoying the beach. This is a summer that will impact each of them.

The holiday house, the heat, the beach and the feel of summer are beautifully described all told through the eyes of the Alix who is smart and observant of everything going on around her. And there is plenty.

She meets a young boy Kahu who tells her about a missing nine-year-old girl who was thought to have been swept out to sea a few years earlier and they set about to solve the mystery of her disappearance. But as children do, they become distracted and explore only to stumble on things they don’t understand.

This is a story with mystery as well as tension as the author explores family relationships, teenage angst and creepy neighbours.

This isn’t an overly long book but it packs in a lot. It seems slow paced in the beginning but it all serves a purpose to build and distract for when we look away for a second something else comes into focus. The second half of the book ramps right up as the tension escalates and we fear for Alix when she walks headlong into  a few difficult  situations, we’re not sure she can get herself out of.

The ending is quite satisfactory leaving the reader to bring together the loose ends without the need to be told. Yes we can draw all of our own conclusions.

I really enjoyed this one. The writing is tight, the characters from a child’s point of view, have depth and it draws you right in.

This is so much more than a who done it. Check this one out.