The Vanished Child

Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable!
Review: Although the scientific jargon of the opening pages almost changed my mind about reading "The Vanished Child," I trudged through and found one of the most intriguing mysteries I have ever read.

Alex or Richard? Is the up-and-coming young scientist an Austrian baron or a missing American heir? A fortune depends on his identity and more is at stake than money. This tangle of intrigue is intelligent and somewhat haunting. One reviewer complained that not all of the loose ends were tidied up and that is true, but it leaves you thinking and involved long after the final "The End."

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written but disappointing
Review: Call me shallow if you wish, but when I read a mystery novel, I want the story's loose ends to be neatly tied up when I reach the final page. I want to know whodunit and why. If you feel the same way, this book, although it is beautifully written, is sure to disappoint you. The author doesn't provide answers to any of the puzzles she sets forth. How did the boy disappear in broad daylight? Did he run away or was he kidnapped? Is Reisden really the missing heir? How could a young boy get from Boston to Africa and then on to Europe? Who hid Jay's body and why? Will Perdita return to Harry? Will Reisden and Perdita end up together? Will Harry and Efnie marry? Will sad, gentle Gilbert end his days alone? The book is compelling, and will leave you longing for a neat resolution, but the author doesn't provide it. It seems as though she ran out of steam -- instead of solving the mysteries she raises, the book simply ends with a weak and inconclusive "Epilogue." While the Vanished Child is compelling reading (I simply couldn't put it down), as I closed the covers, the lack of a real conclusion made me feel duped.

Rating:
Summary: a psychological suspense thriller not to be missed
Review: Never have I read a book and lingered over it as I did The Vanished Child. A wonderfully, lyrical book that captures the reader's imagination from the opening pages and holds it through and past the last pages. I read the sequel, The Knowledge of Water, almost immediately because Reisden and Perdita haunted me so. The story begins with a man, a scientist by profession and a Baron by lineage, who is adrift and uncentered years after the death of his young wife. A death for which he feels entirely responsible. Juxtaposed with his story to find himself again is the story of literally finding one man's identity. The mystery is that he may be the heir to an American fortune. The heir disappeared immediately after presumably witnessing the brutal murder of his guardian grandfather. Who killed the grandfather and why? What happened to the child? Why does the Baron have no memories of his earliest childhood years? A taut, psychological suspense mystery unfolds as the Baron ! relunctantly agrees to "help" solve the mystery but is unable to remain as detached and clinical as he would like. The story is a mystery, a romance and a thriller that is both haunting and illuminating. The author has promised a trilogy and I cannot wait for the third installment. Read The Vanished Child and The Knowledge of Water--you will not regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Complex and charming.
Review: The Vanished Child is marvelous. I am actually writing this review about 1 1/2 years after I read it and it is still very clear in my mind. I read a lot of books and sadly many of them are something I remember reading, but not being involved in. I find myself visiting with the characters in this book from time to time. I especially liked the scene where Peridita is given a feminist pin and tucks it under her hat to better contemplate it.

I enjoyed the prose, I found it charming. I did not find the characters to be overly modern. In fact, I think Sarah Smith got it right on the head. After all, we are talking about contemporaries of Nietzsche, Freud and Susan B. Anthony. The main characters (Alexander and Peridita) shared something of the outsider's perspective of Nietzsche, Freud and Susan B. Anthony. The respectable class would at best feel an uneasy tolerance of them. Perdita being blind AND an artist. Alexander dark, complex and brooding - - a bit like Heathcliff and look how things turned out for him!

Other than the Alienist, I cannot think of any other book set in this period that picks up and runs these complex elements of one of the most interesting periods of intellectual history. However, the Alienist is more of a face paced thriller and The Vanished Child is more cerebral. Both are well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A breathtaking, engrossing, original book.
Review: This book is so beautifully written, the plot so delicately assembled, and the charecters filled with such depth as to take your breath away. I have never read a book so intricate and fascinating as sarah smith's THE VANISHED CHILD. This book is not to be missed, and will absorb your thoughts for days after reading it. The marvellous complexities and dualities of the charecters, their pyschological states are engrossing.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF WATER and A CITIZEN OF THE COUNTRY are the equally compelling sequels

Rating:
Summary: I could read anything by this author; this is a favorite!
Review: This is the book that compelled me to buy every single one of the other books I could find by the author - her writing is simply that good and the characters she creates are vivid and compelling.
In The Vanished Child, the reader is immediately submerged into a decades old mystery, centering on Alexander Von Reisden, a man with alarming gaps in his memory and virtually no recollection of his childhood.
One day, a chance meeting with a stranger raises even more questions about himself and his past. Could he possibly be Richard Knight, a missing heir who was kidnapped as a child and who stands to inherit a fortune from the surviving members of his family? Or is he simply someone who coincidentally resembles the Knight family, leading some of them to believe (or hope) that he could be the missing Richard?
Author Sarah Smith weaves her tale with haunting intensity and detail, keeping me reading till nearly morning. I paid the price the next day but it was worth it.

Rating:
Summary: A Thrilling Thriller
Review: Writing a 'period thriller' in this day and age must be a daunting task. No real car chases; no internet spying; no satellite explosions; no nuclear threats;...But Sarah Smith manages to create a thrilling piece of fiction out of the woods of New Hampshire and Boston in 1906 in bringing readers the story of the Vanished Child.

Alexander Von Reisden never expected to be recognized as the 'vanished' Richard Knight eighteen years after the boy disappears. But when Richard's former doctor Charlie Adair approaches him on a European train platform, he is drawn into the mystery that Richard left behind...a murdered grandfather, an unclaimed inheritance...a missing secretary...and no answers in sight.

Reisden travels to Boston to 'help' the Knight family find those answers, implying that he is not Richard, but all the while leaving a shadow of a doubt in everyone's minds.

In Boston, he encounters Gilbert Knight, the dowdy, dithering uncle of the missing Richard; Harry Boulding, the favored heir who stands to inherit millions upon the legal declaration of Richard's demise, and Perdita, Harry's fiance and Charlie Adair's niece. Reisden opens a full-scale search and investigation into the disappearance of Richard, as well as Jay French, the secretary to Richard's grandfather William, and the murder of William himself. Reisden becomes enmeshed in the Knight family background; searching for the history of a boy when he in fact has no memory of his own early childhood.

Sarah Smith entertained me greatly with this novel. It is appropriately moody and dark, the language reads with authenticity to the time period of the story, and although the author admits to 'bending timeline' a bit to make certain events fit her story...it is not bent enough to break continuity or believability. As a Boston resident I enjoyed many location descriptions and sank comfortably into the history of the city I now call home.

My only real critiques are: Some confusion with calling Reisden by the name Richard occasionally, in narrative, to further the thought that...'maybe' he is Richard after all; and for an undeveloped thread regarding the death of Reisden's wife, and for naming the Boston Common Frog Pond inappropriately as site of Swan Boat paddling...as well as some loose ends that are not tied up with the ending.

This is well worth the read, regardless of these criticisms. After reading that this was a planned trilogy all along, perhaps any lingering questions will be answered. And knowing that there are two other books to follow, I cannot wait to indulge myself in the others.