Persons Unknown: A Novel

Presumed Unknown is a layered story. On one level, it is a police procedural. Jon-Oliver Ross, a wealth manager, dies in a Cambridgeshire park from a stab wound. Even though his links to the rich and powerful of London’s financial district and an earlier death, that of an underage escort, suggest other lines of inquiry, the investigation quickly closes in on a young black boy. On another level, it is an exploration of the everyday anxieties of a pregnant woman, Manon Bradshaw, as she copes with being both a police officer and mother-by-adoption of the black suspect. The plot is artfully contrived but definitely creaks in places – for example, Manon’s sister just happens to be the murdered man’s ex-wife and the lover of the police superintendent overseeing the investigation. This extraordinary happenstance, however, is easily forgotten in the delightful flow of the writing. By telling the story in the present tense, the author brings a zestful immediacy to the action, and the short, sharp sentences and verb-free phrases dotting the text often turn the reader’s understanding of a character’s state of mind upside down while adding a dose of honest, real-life humor. All in all, Presumed Unknown is certainly worth reading.