Whistle in the Dark

"Jen [felt] a sudden exhaustion from the burden of the love she felt for Lana. Why did she have to drag this love around everywhere when, sometimes, she'd like to leave it behind for a few hours? Without that love, she could float away, let her daughter's mood improve, let her put her frown and her sharp tongue back in their still-shiny packaging. Without that love, she could be light, untethered by their shared genetics, by the memory of Lana as a baby, or by the pride she felt in her wit, even when it was aimed so fiercely at her."

Whistle in the Dark is the second novel by award-winning British author, Emma Healey. In the last days of a sketching holiday in Derbyshire's Peak District, Jen wakes to every mother's worst nightmare: her fifteen-year-old daughter is missing. It is four days of worry before Lana is found, bruised and bloody, soaking wet, exhausted and hungry, by a local farmer.

"I can't remember" is her reply to every query. Jen's level-headed husband Hugh is perfectly happy to wait until his daughter remembers of her own accord: she's safe now, and that's all that really matters. Twenty-six-year-old Meg is convinced that her sister's amnesia is just more of Lana's attention-seeking behaviour.

But over the following days and weeks, Jen notes changes in Lana: this is not the teen she went away with. Whatever happened has changed her daughter in ways she can't always define. She's quite sure she isn't imagining it, and she can't help her compulsion to learn what those four lost days held for Lana.

Lana is not particularly likeable for much of the book: a typical prickly teen, and there seems to be a bit of sibling rivalry between sisters for Jen's love and devotion. Jen's relationship with Lana is not the easiest: "Jen was aware of the hum of paranoia beneath her thoughts, a hum that rose in pitch whenever Lana and she were alone together."

A natural worrier, Jen is constantly clutching at straws, going to some extraordinary lengths to find out what happened to Lana. Any parent of a teenaged girl would be able to empathise with her, but is her level of concern natural, or does her monitoring of Lana's tweets, Instagram posts and reading matter amount to stalking?

The reader wants to know too, sure, but sometimes Hugh's laid-back attitude is less irritating than Jen's anxiety. But it's worth persisting, as Jen does, because patience is certainly rewarded with an excellent climax. And some of Jen's research (viz. alternate uses of condoms) certainly adds humour. Healey's second novel is at least as good as her debut.