The Vanishing Point

One of the finest crime writers we have, Val McDermid’s heart-stopping thrillers have won her international renown and a devoted following of readers worldwide. In The Vanishing Point, she kicks off a terrifying thriller with a nightmare scenario: a parent who loses her child in a bustling international airport.

Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian watches helplessly from the glass inspection box. But this is no ordinary abduction, as Jimmy is no ordinary child. His mother was Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer and alienated from her unreliable family, entrusted the boy to the person she believed best able to give him a happy, stable life: her ghost writer, Stephanie Harker. Assisting the FBI in their attempt to recover the missing boy, Stephanie reaches into the past to uncover the motive for the abduction. Has Jimmy been taken by his own relatives? Is Stephanie’s obsessive ex-lover trying to teach her a lesson? Has one of Scarlett’s stalkers come back to haunt them all?

A powerful, grippingly-plotted thriller that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the end,The Vanishing Pointshowcases McDermid at the height of her talent.

Review

Another gripping read from the queen of psychological thrillers. Haunting Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin Val McDermid's dark crime series will at times repulse even the most hardened crime reader Culture Street Val McDermid, what a diva of crime! ... An acute and credible thriller Sunday Age McDermid handles the various strands of the story with consummate mastery, and the reader is swept along to the story's genuinely shocking denouement Irish Independent This is a gripping psychological thriller from the beginning to the unexpected ending. A first class novel and McDermid's best to date Woman's Way Ireland Val McDermid, what a diva of crime! An acute and credible psychological thriller Sunday Examiner A breathtakingly rich and gripping psychological thriller, The Vanishing Point is Val McDermid's most accomplished standalone novel to date, a work of haunting brilliance Mid-West News The queen of the psychological thriller, Val McDermid, proves exactly why she has earned that appellation with her latest offering ... [she] has a gift for inducing gut-wrenching suspense and high anxiety. Disquiet is transferred as if by alchemy direct from the page into the mind. It's uncomfortable and compelling West Australian