Two puzzles for the price of one

As if one superbly twisted plot was not enough, two top crime writers have united to leave readers puzzling over who wrote what.

Author credits for The Wrong Child are highlighted on the cover as MJ Arlidge and Julia Crouch.

Both have long been famed as being among the top creators in their genre.

The first as the long-standing wizz behind the ongoing South Coast series of nailbiters featuring adrenalin-powered Inspector Helen Grace; the second appropriately billed as the queen of domestic noir.

It is always fascinating to have this sub-plot inviting readers to detect where one author stops and their co-writer takes over.

To date, all attempts to notch up a win have been a massive fail. All have been seamless unions with not a crack or dividing line to be found.

And this ‘marriage’ between Arlidge and Crouch proved to be no different. Harder to crack than any cryptic crossword.

Much the same can be said of the story itself. The puzzle persists right through to the final page.

It is a gripping tale of baby-snatching. Not simply centred a single incident, as it first appears – but an ongoing series of newly born infants being taken from their doting parents.

It is giving nothing away to state that the Star family of caravan-dwellers is behind these heinous crimes.

Precisely drawn in all their monstrous lifestyle and habits they leap off the page as a full-blown force to be reckoned with.

Woe betide anything or anybody who stands in the way of their rampaging existence.

Running parallel to the story of these stop-at-nothing renegades from society is the heart-wrenching tale of those who are left to cope with the loss of their infant children.

The effect it has on their relationships and especially on those most painfully affected – the birth mothers.

Only they know the minutiae of the round-the-clock care and nursing these newborns demand. It is knowledge only they possess and is critical to their infant’s care and survival.

And it is information not possessed by the kidnappers. The wrong medicine, the lack of essential treatment, a disrupted routine – all can cause irreversible damage or even death.  It becomes a race against time.

Thus tension mounts as readers are presented with a thrilling chase to the finish that hints at emanating from the pen of MJ Aldridge and Inspector Grace. 

Perhaps. And maybe the intense maternal thoughts and feelings of the victims are given birth by Julia Crouch.

But does it matter? No, not a jot. Because the pair of them have given us a bunch of varied and rivetting characters plus action that grips from start to finish.

Added to which there’s a teasing coda  suggesting that this is not the last we are going to hear of the monstrous Jenna Star and the gross family she dominates.

Highly recommended.