The Missing

Jane Casey's The Missing centers on Sarah Finch, a teacher whose childhood was defined by the unexplained disappearance of her brother Charlie. Years later, twelve-year-old Jenny Shepherd vanishes from Sarah's school. Sarah recognizes the family's terror, but her connection to the case becomes more dangerous when she finds Jenny's body and is drawn into the police investigation.

The novel links two absences without assuming they have the same cause. Sarah's grief shaped her family relationships; the new crime exposes how closely the community watches her. Suspicion grows because Sarah withholds information and cannot always explain her actions. The reader is kept near a perspective marked by trauma, guilt, and uncertain memory.

Casey uses the mystery to examine what prolonged uncertainty does to a family. The search for a culprit matters, but so does the way loss reorganizes trust. The Missing gains its tension from Sarah's divided position: she understands the relatives of a missing child more intimately than most people, yet that very intimacy makes her appear implicated.