DON’T LEAVE ME

Now that 11-year-old Julie Winterton has been reported missing to the Thames Valley police precinct, Detective Superintendent Mike Yeadings (Cold Hands, p. 18, etc.) is reminded of events eight years ago when Julie’s father, fiction writer Daniel Winterton, had reported his wife Caroline’s disappearance, along with a sizable share of their joint bank account. She was traced to the Canary Islands, in company with handsome neighbor Barry Morgan, and eventually the case was closed. In this new crisis Mike enlists the help of Detective Sergeant Rosemary Zyczynski, routinely called “Z,” who interviews Julie’s one-time nanny Katy Anson. No help there. Nothing daunted, Mike tracks down Caroline’s brother, Clifford Hook, who turns out to be an administrator at Craythorpe Park Hospital, a psychiatric facility. Seemingly near a breakdown himself, Hook relies heavily on assistant Len Grover; certainly he’s in no shape to shed any light on Julie’s disappearance. Not until a gratuitously injected and lengthily described bank robbery does a highly improbable revelation from the past lead the way to Julie’s rescue.

Mike is as likable as ever, but the plotting here is beyond bizarre: unconvincing first to last. Not one of Curzon’s better outings.