The Vanishing Point: The pulse-racing standalone thriller that you won't be able to put down

Description

Stephanie Harker is travelling through security at O'Hare airport with five-year-old Jimmy. But in a moment, everything changes. In disbelief, Stephanie watches as a uniformed agent leads her boy away - and she's stuck the other side of the gates, hysterical with worry. The authorities, unaware of Jimmy's existence, just see a woman behaving erratically; Stephanie is wrestled to the ground and blasted with a taser gun. By the time she can tell them what has happened, Jimmy is long gone. But as Stephanie tells her story to the FBI, it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems. There are many potential suspects for this abduction. With time rapidly running out, how can Stephanie get him back? A breathtakingly rich and gripping psychological thriller, THE VANISHING POINT is Val McDermid's most accomplished standalone novel to date, a work of haunting brilliance.

Val McDermid is a top 10 bestseller, translated into more than 30 languages, with over two million copies sold in the UK and over 10 million worldwide. She has written 25 bestselling novels, most recently THE RETRIBUTION. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the the Stonewall Writer of the Year Award. In 2011, Val was the recipient of the Pioneer Award at the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards. In 2010, she was awarded the prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger. This followed her induction into the Hall of Fame at the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards in 2009, the same year in which she was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at St Hilda's College, Oxford.

McDermid's ability to wrong-foot the reader remains second to none: highly recommended Guardian A psychological thriller, but it's also a splendidly mordant comment on our fame culture and its consequences The Times McDermid handles the various strands of the story with consummate mastery, and the reader is swept along to the story's genuinely shocking denouement Irish Independent This is a gripping psychological thriller from the beginning to the unexpected ending. A first class novel and McDermid's best to date Woman's Way Ireland Intelligent and hypnotically readable ... entertaining and thought-provoking book Spectator A gripping tale Choice An efficiently crafted psychological thriller with an ending that knocks you sideways Independent on Sunday A McDermid standalone is always an event to cherish because you don't know who you'll meet or where you'll be taken Daily Mirror The strands come together and lead to an eye-blinkingly effective climax. (An) intelligent and hypnotically readable thriller...entertaining and thought provoking Spectator