Contains Spoilers
Sometimes when I start a book I sort of have an
inkling of how it is going to end; this is the same with movies and TV shows,
my mom always found it odd I could predicate the ending. I could see to
many coincidences adding up with the book to be able to believe that the baby
was actually missing. Little Face begins with a first time mother who
left her child for the first time for a short afternoon outing at the local
health club. She comes home to find that the baby her husband had been
watching is not the baby she brought home from the hospital. That is
where the name Little Face begins. The book switches back and forth from
the present day investigation of Alice and Little Face missing versus when
Alice reported her daughter missing and the police did not believe her.
Alice is convinced that her daughter has been kidnapped and another
baby put in it’s place. David her husband is now convinced that his wife
is crazy. Vivienne, David’s mother puts up the face that she believes
that Alice is crazy, but towards the end of the book Alice points out that
Vivienne is not sure what to believe with the baby. The book follows the
investigation of both cases, Alice trying to prove the baby is not Florence and
rather Little Face and then the detectives trying to find both Alice and the
baby.
During the book Sophie Hannah works on developing
each character's personalities and they really shine through the book.
Alice is a homeopath who has lost both of her parents and really took to
Vivienne as a mother figure who showed her warmth and guidance in the beginning
something that Alice was missing in her life. In the beginning it does
feel if Alice did really enjoy Vivienne and things did not change until they
moved into the Elms and she got pregnant. Alice throughout the time the
baby is missing keeps to her character while in the house, playing the naive
mother who really believes that her daughter is missing. David’s character is a
little harder to follow in the story, he seems to have been bullied by his
mother for so long that he doesn’t know anything else besides that. David
shows that he wants to get control of Alice by degrading her and doing things
that would make his mother see Alice as crazy. I feel this is the only
way David knows how to express himself since his mother has taken so much
control of his life. Vivienne seems off from the beginning, she seems
very controlling and the issues can be seen when she is forcing Alice to do
things with the baby that she does not want to do. Vivienne has also
taken full control of David’s first child Felix from his dead wife Lauren.
One of the things that I did enjoy in the book
is how Sophie Hannah developed the character of Lauren who was deceased.
She uses a playback of Lauren visiting Alice before she was killed giving
an insight into Lauren knowing that David and Vivienne are dangerous, as well
as giving her a warning to be careful. Also, after Simon goes to
visit Darryl Beer who knows a lot about Lauren’s life work and aspirations you
can see she was a very educated women who had her priorities in order, so her
changing her mind so abruptly about Vivienne becomes very uncharacteristic.
I feel where the book lost me on the actual
missing child was a small detail that I believe could have been left out; when
all the pictures taken from the hospital where deleted. That was the moment
I knew Alice was involved. I had two theories after this small detail was
given either Alice actually did swap the babies with another one or it was the
same baby.
I was not able to put it down once the story
really took off of getting close to finding out who really did kill Lauren,
which came to me as the bigger mystery. I feel like the last few chapters
of why Alice took off where sort of redundant and just showing that Simon was a
good detective. I liked when Sophie Hannah would have Simon just say that
he knew where Alice was, but not reveal details until further on in the novel.
It helped develop Simon as a strong detective.
Overall I enjoyed Little Face, it was a fast
read since you wanted to know what actually happened to the baby and who killed
Lauren. I feel I was more interested in learning who killed Lauren since
I was pretty sure the baby was the same baby after the pictures all being
deleted was revealed. The character developed helped to keep the
book moving along. I don’t believe there was a lot of suspense until
Vivienne and Alice were together in the pool discussing how Vivienne killed
Lauren. The mystery was more in who killed Lauren to me. Also, the
David and Alice scenes of him abusing her seemed to lead me to believe he was
somehow involved in Lauren’s murder, until his computer password was Lauren
than that was solved as well in my mind.
I would read this on a vacation, it is a quick
read and involves some mystery. I would probably not reread this book and
would move reading more Sophie Hannah mysteries down my every growing book list
since I was able to see the ending coming.
My rating 3/5
Author website
http://www.sophiehannah.com/
Publisher
Penguin Group
ISBN 9780143114086
Length 310
Format paperback
Book Series
Number #1 in the Simon Waterhouse/Charlie Zailer series
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