The Moment She Was Gone: A Novel

"The Moment She Was Gone" is a drama written by Evan Hunter who writes wonderful police procedurals under the name Ed McBain. Andy Gulliver receives a phone call from his mother informing him that his twin sister Annie has disappeared, again. In fact Annie had disappeared many times before. While in Italy she had been held in a mental hospital where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Andy searches for the truth that will help him find his sister. This novel grabbed me from the first page and kept me turning pages until I reached the end. I have read over 60 novels by Evan Hunter/Ed McBain and every time I know that I am reading a work by a literary master. "The Moment She Was Gone" is highly recommended.

It was a delight to have found this book (hardcover version) in the bookstore. I found it a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable read. The narrative style of the story pulls the reader along with the main character; you live and feel his frustrations. His journey is your journey. For an author to inspire such feelings of empathy (and to do it so routinely as does Evan Hunter) is truly magnificent. This was a sad but beautiful tale and I recommend it entirely.

I'd been after this book for ages, and I finally got my hands on it (on honeymoon, no less), I found it almost impossible to put down. As a confirmed Ed McBain fan, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but unlike what one of the other reviewers says below, this book is filled with characters that seem more 'real' and 'human' - I defy anyone with a shred of emotion or empathy not to care about what happens to the characters Mr Hunter creates here. I've read most McBain novels, and a lot of Hunter novels. To my mind, this is the best Hunter novel...ever - I found it more affecting and much harder to put down than "The Blackboard Jungle", which is the book Hunter is most well known for to most people. I simply can't recommend this book highly enough. Isn't there a ranking better than 5 stars??

I think the bad reviews are coming from readers already familiar with the popular novels of Evan Hunter/Ed McBain. If you want the 87th Precinct, this ain't it.But what it IS is brilliant. The book deals with some very real (and hard to like) characters dealing with mental illness, which seems to run in the family, based on the way all the characters act. It's dark, emotional, and frankly scary - to contemplate the horror of living with a loved one dealing with this illness.It's such a departure from most of his body of work that I was amazed that he had this sort of book in him. My recommendation is to read this as if it were written by a new novelist you've never heard of, and only if you enjoy dark, emotional writing that investigates the complex undercurrents of a dysfunctional family. This is NOT cheerful stuff. But it's amazingly real, at least to me. I've known people like this, and the author NAILS their personalities.I also strongly recommend the audio version of this book - narrator Dan Futterman does an amazing job of capturing the stilted voices and mannerisms of this uptight, denial-ridden family.It's a pity this book is being panned like this, but I'm convinced it's because the readers wanted more of the "same old same old" from Hunter. He definitely did not deliver that. But for readers willing to explore a dark, challenging topic in a story filled with some very flawed but very human characters, I recommend this highly.