What Was Lost

by Catherine O'Flynn

A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective, Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre’s endless corridors – welcome relief from the behaviour of customers, colleagues and the Green Oaks mystery shopper. But as this after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings new loss and new longing to light.

(From Publisher).

Catherine O'Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents' sweet shop as the youngest in a large family. She has been a teacher, web editor, mystery customer and postwoman. Her first novel draws on her experience of working in record stores - and of growing up as a child intrigued by clues, suspects and methods of detection.

A staff favourite, exceptional debut novel.

Written with humour and pathos, What Was Lost is a poignant meditation on loss and loneliness, on the alienation and purposelessness of modern consumer culture told through the unique and utterly convincing choices of shifting narrators.

A gripping well constructed plot and totally convincing characters. The action is centred on the Green Oaks shopping centre, which almost seems to have a life of its own and you are left wanting to know more about the characters.

A gripping story about a group of outsiders which manages to be very funny and sad, beautiful and dark at the same time. It is written with simplicity and elegance and has great characterisation.