In Catherine O’Flynn’s WHAT WAS LOST, a 10-year-old girl, Kate, fancies herself a detective. She watches people, makes up stories to herself about them, and takes great care with her notes about following them. Then one day she disappears.

The police’s immediate and only suspect is a young man, Adrian, who was her neighbor and had befriended this lonely little girl. When he could bear the suspicion of neighbors and his family no longer, he, too, disappears.

Flash forward 20 years. Adrian’s little sister, Lisa, now an adult, is an assistant manager at a music store in a huge mall, the largest in England. Also working at the mall is a security guard, Kurt.

And now we spend the rest of the book trying to figure out what either of them has to do with Kate, who we assume is the subject of the story. But as we continue to read, we have to wonder why we keep getting off the subject, exploring Lisa’s feelings of uselessness and Kurt’s imaginings. Isn’t this about the disappearances of Kate and Adrian?

I read several good reviews of this book. So I wondered what was wrong with me. Why did I skip paragraphs because they were dull?

O’Flynn does a lot of character examination in the second part of the book. It was too much for me because she doesn't point out the connection to Kate until almost the end. I guess I was supposed to trust her