“[A] knockout debut…. Ms. Healey’s audacious conception and formidable talent combine in a bravura performance that sustains its momentum and pathos to the last.” — Wall Street Journal

"Spellbinding." — New York Times Book Review

“Ingeniously structured and remarkably poignant…. A riveting story of friendship and loss that will have you compulsively puzzling fact from fiction as you race to the last page.” — Kimberly McCreight, New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, Where They Found Her, and A Good Marriage

“This is no conventional crime novel but a compelling work that crosses literary genres. Maud’s experience of dementia is harrowing at times, especially in comparison to her completely lucid moments. The two mysteries at the heart of the book, too—one experienced as a girl and the other as an elderly woman—are brilliantly handled. The result is bold, touching and hugely memorable.” — Sunday Times (London)

“Elizabeth Is Missing is every bit as compelling as the...hype suggests.... The novel is both a gripping detective yarn and a haunting depiction of mental illness, but also more poignant and blackly comic than you might expect.” — The Observer (London)

“Not only have we several genres in the one novel, we have two main themes. How it feels to experience dementia, and a page-turner of a detective story. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be beautiful. It is a gripping thriller, but it’s also about life and love: the love of an exasperated daughter for her mother; the love of sisters and of friends and the love I felt for Maud.” — The Independent (London)

“A compelling read, Elizabeth is Missing offers added depth of mystery and suspense along with aptly portraying a family trying to cope with illness.” — New York Journal of Books

“A gripping mystery…this bears comparison to A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. — The Bookseller, “Ones to Watch”

“Elizabeth is Missing will stir and shake you: an investigation into a seventy-year-old crime, through the eyes of the most likeably unreliable of narrators. But the real mystery at its compassionate core is the fragmentation of the human mind.” — Emma Donoghue

“Part mystery, part meditation on memory, part Dickensian revelation of how apparent charity may hurt its recipients, this is altogether brilliant.” — Booklist (starred review)

“British author Healey draws on her own grandmothers’ experiences to create the distinctive narrator of her first novel… an absorbing tale.” — Publishers Weekly

“Maud’s memory is failing, slipping further away each day. So how can she convince anyone that her best friend is truly missing?…A poignant novel of loss.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Healey is able to imagine and empathize on such a level because she’s simply a brilliant writer. Let’s hope we hear much more from her over the years.” — BookPage

“A thrillingly assured, haunting and unsettling novel, I read it at a gulp.” — Deborah Moggach, author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

“This novel genuinely is one of those semi-mythical beasts, the book you cannot put down.” — Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotter’s Club

Maud is forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and doesn't remember to drink it. She goes to the shops and forgets why she went. Sometimes her home is unrecognizable—or her daughter, Helen, seems a total stranger.

But there's one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, to leave it alone, to shut up, Maud will get to the bottom of it.

Because somewhere in Maud's damaged mind lies the answer to an unsolved seventy-year-old mystery. One everyone has forgotten about.

Everyone, except Maud . . .

A page-turning story of suspense, Elizabeth Is Missing hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.