Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healy

A confused elderly lady thinks her old buddy has gone missing and suspects foul play. In the words of Vicky Pollard 'yeh but no but yeh' and I'm not going to give away what surfaces from the buried wreckage of World War II, from Maud's mind as she drifts through 'the foggy ruins of time' (Dylan quote), from a back garden, oops slight spoiler there.

Elizabeth is Missing does a lot of things really well, Maud's first person narrative is real-seeming, we get her scrambling of detail shot through with some very sharp awareness of human behaviour. Dementia and people's perceptions of it must often create such vicious spirals; the carer or relative or copper not bothering to explain things rationally because they assume... and the person then becoming more confused and getting angry because they are being taken for a fool. It is no wonder Maud deliberately smashes crockery in public places and the story has its comic moments. The author is good on building Maud's environment too; the seaside town and the neighbourhood where Maud has always lived, the church where the vicar's 'hands are incredibly soft, as if they have been worn smooth by the amount of handshaking he has to do,' the upscale restaurant which used to be the Chophouse, the charity shop where Peggy the manager no longer needs her help.

This is a concise, very incident filled book and one which often draws the reader inside it emotionally. Easy to see how it won the Costa 'Book of the Year.'