Book review #6 - Play Date by Alex Dahl

 

Playdate: a gripping psychological thriller about a missing girl

By Alex Dahl

About the book:

It was meant to be your daughter's first sleepover.
Now it's an abduction.

Lucia Blix went home from school for a playdate with her new friend Josie. Later that evening, her mother Elisa dropped her overnight things round and shared a glass of wine with Josie's mother. Then she kissed her little girl goodnight and drove home.

That was the last time she saw her daughter.

The next morning, the house was empty. No furniture, no family, no Lucia.

In Playdate, Alex Dahl puts a microscope on a seemingly average, seemingly happy family plunged into a life-altering situation.

Who has taken their daughter, and why?

About the author:

Alex Dahl is a half-American, half-Norwegian author. Born in Oslo, she studied Russian and German linguistics with international studies, then went on to complete an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University and an MSc in business management at Bath University. A committed Francophile, Alex loves to travel and has so far lived in Moscow, Paris, Stuttgart, Sandefjord, Switzerland, Bath, and London. She is the author of three other thrillers: Playdate, The Heart Keeper, and The Boy at the Door, which was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger.

My take:

Elisa Blix and Fredrik Blix are the typical family of four, with Lucia, a seven-year-old daughter, and Lyder, a five-year-old son to complete this seemingly happy family. One fine day, Lucia insists on going on a play date with her newfound friend from school, Josephine, and Elisa obliges, after meeting Josephine’s mother, Line.

Later, Lucia calls her from Line’s cell phone and begs to allow her a sleepover. Elisa is not very happy with the idea, but seeing how happy it makes Lucia, she allows. She heads over to the house of Josephine to handover Lucia’s nightclothes and stuffed toys, walks around the beautiful house where Lucia will be spending the night, watches Lucia as she happily plays cartwheels with Josephine, has a glass of wine with Line, and leaves, making arrangements for her husband to pick Lucia up the next morning, since she has her flight the next day, as the flight attendant for Nordic wings.

Their world turns topsy-turvy when the next day, Lucia is gone without a trace, no evidence of Line or Josephine at the residence they were staying at, or of Josephine at the school.

As the story progresses, many different angles are examined by the police, during which secrets come out, and the Blix family proves to be nothing close to the happy family they portray to be on Elisa’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

The story is narrated from different point of views, including Elisa, little Lucia, Line, Marcus, a criminal serving time in  the prison at Lillehammer, and Selma, a journalist who invests too many emotions in the case.

The flow of the story is nice. Human emotions are beautifully captured, including those of the young Lucia, who doesn’t know what and whom to believe anymore. The suspense is spell-binding, something I hadn’t thought of till I was almost 85% into the book.

The downside of the book is the way it drags on becoming boring and repetitive in the middle. The detailed descriptions, especially of Selma, about what she ate, what she wore, which roads she took, which shops she stared at, made me feel like giving up reading at one point. Had the story not been so compelling, I would definitely have left. I also developed a strong dislike for Elisa, and pity at the way Selma behaved. The secret that Elisa was carrying was mentioned so many times and yet not revealed till so late that it became irritating at one point.

So overall, a nice story, which could have been narrated in a better and crisp way.

I rate it 3.5 stars.