Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey is a detective story with a difference. Maud, a grandmother in her eighties, keeps insisting that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing but can’t persuade anyone to go and look for her. This is because Maud has Alzheimer’s and is often confused.
Sometimes Maud doesn’t recognize her daughter or granddaughter and she can’t keep track of the endless notes she keeps in her pocket to remind her of what she should be doing. When she tries to boil an egg, she forgets to turn off the gas and nearly kills herself.
Maud has turned into a nightmare; she persists in regularly turning up at the police station to report that Elizabeth is missing. Her daughter Helen does her best to look after her but is being pushed to her limits. Eventually the point is reached where Maud can no longer care for herself and has to move in with daughter.
As Maud’s story develops, another mystery that has never been solved comes to her mind. Seventy years ago, just after the war, Maud’s older sister Sukey left home and never returned. Only her abandoned suitcase was later found. Because Maud’s long term memory is still intact, she is much more lucid about this mysterious disappearance and what led up to it than that of the disappearance of her friend Elizabeth.
Was Sukey murdered? There are three likely suspects: Sukey’s husband Frank (a black market racketeer with violent tendencies), the young male boarder who was supposedly her very good friend, and a mentally-unstable woman who has been haunting her. Any one of these could have done the deed.
The two stories are cleverly woven together, and although towards the end of the book Maud’s rambling and obsessive quest to find Elizabeth becomes a little tiresome, the mysterious circumstances surrounding Sukey’s disappearance are gripping and kept me wanting to read to the end to see if either of the mysteries could be solved.
Elizabeth is Missing is the debut novel of 28-year-old Emma Healey. It has already won her wide acclaim. It surprised me that someone so young could write so perceptively about Alzheimer’s, but Emma has first-hand experience of the disease because her grandmother has it.
Maud’s obsessive drive to find Elizabeth is an expression of her loneliness; Elizabeth was her last and only surviving friend. She loved her company and they had such fun together. Sadly one of our close friends has recently developed dementia. We can hold a conversation, and he still has a sense of humour, but sometimes he can go completely off track. It’s incredibly sad to see him on this downward journey. Reading Elizabeth is Missing was a reminder of how important it is to stay friends even when the going gets tough.
Title: Elizabeth is Missing
Author: Emma Healey
Imprint: Viking
RRP $37