Ponder: Found

Found is a crime thriller by Erin Kinsley. It was engaging and not a waste of time if you like the crime novel genre, but I think it fell short of its touted five star praises. I bought it for $.99 to read in a Kindle version based on its high ratings from BookBub where it was featured one day in February. We had painters in our house four days last week and so I was pretty much a captive audience sitting in front of my computer screen reading the download while staying out of their way. I do not regret the $.99 nor the time I spent reading it, but both the price and the time I invested were about par for the quality of the book. My three star rating translates to Better than average; not a waste of time.

Comments by Goodreads Reviewers who rated the book five stars enticed me to read this book

• ‘If you read one book this year make sure it’s Found!’
• ‘Not often I finish a book in one day but I couldn’t put it down.’
• ‘Heartfelt, traumatic, terrifying...just an amazing read. An easy five stars’
• ‘An amazing read...every single parent’s worse nightmare but written in a truly beautiful way’

I found that that his novel had more of an emotional pluck-your-heart-strings bent than the usual fear-induced suspense of crime thrillers. Living inside the home of the parents of eleven year old Evan while the search for him is ongoing reveals side effects of a child snatching crime that the public rarely glimpses. Truly heartbreaking is the parental stress, trauma, and marital friction that result and evolve as hours stretch into days, days stretch into weeks, and weeks stretch into months of their son being missing. A plot synopsis from BookBub focuses more on solving the crime than on the familial ramifications of it's committal.

A boy’s disappearance baffles the police. But the real mystery begins when he returns… Can Detective Inspector Naylor catch the people who took him — before they strike again? With nearly 3,000 five-star Goodreads ratings, this page-turner is “impossible to put down!” (Edgar Award–winning author Minette Walters). featured on BookBub on February 09, 2020

Having their child returned to them is not the sunshine and roses one would believe. Evan is changed – drastically changed – in a manner befuddling those around him. He is psychologically damaged. His elective mutism and self-imposed social isolation stand in the way of any efforts to help him heal and offer little assistance to the police who are trying to catch his abductors. Thankfully the reader never learns the specifics of what atrocities may have been done with or to him in the time he was gone, October to June, only that he must have suffered. What I found most appealing and heartwarming in this book was the way Evan's grandparents could reach him when his parents were unable.

The book has four sections and takes place over the course of a year, October to September

• Your Worst Nightmare (chapters 1-9)
• The Answer to All Your Prayers (chapters 10-31)
• Somebody Else's Child (chapters 32-49)
• Sunlight on Water (aftermath in months of July and September)

Your Worst Nightmare focuses on when Evan is first taken. There is a reconstruction of the events up to his point of abduction from the bus stop, re-enacted hopefully to glean any clues for the police that can lead to finding him. The angst of his parents while he is missing for nine months is in the spotlight. The Answer to Your Prayers concentrates on Evan's psychological and emotional condition upon his return as relates to his family and friends. It is not until Somebody Else's Child, and a second child abduction that clues are compiled to lead to the perpetrators. In that sense, the crime element is only about a third of the book. The final two months, Sunlight on Water, are mainly a denouement.

mystery sticker from zazzle.com

As a psychological character study, this book was exceedingly probing and worth reading. For a reader who is looking for a crime to solve that they can really sink their teeth into, the scattering of a few clues in the final third of the novel makes the detective aspect a bit disappointing. I rate Found three stars.