Lost [Paperback]

Lucy Wadham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2000

Alice Aron arrives in Corsica with her two sons to visit the childhood home of her late husband. Within hours one of the boys has been kidnapped and a hopeless and inert bureaucracy seems unable to take the matter seriously - until Stuart, an unpopular and morose policeman, takes over.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Lucy Wadham's Corsica is a sunny Mediterranean island, true, but banish whatever images of Capri and Sardinia and Majorca that might pop into your head. Wadham's island is anything but glamorous--even bucolic seems a stretch. It is instead a latter-day Galapagos, where social Darwinians might find ample evidence of the harshness that governs the survival of the fittest. Windswept and corrupt, Corsica's bitter beauty can seduce--or trap.

Alice Aron has returned with her two young sons to the island, home of her late husband. She has always felt ill at ease here, and her powerlessness as an outsider is brought into brutal relief when her older son is kidnapped by a renegade member of the FNL, a Corsican independence movement languishing amidst apathy and greed. Mickey da Cruz is gambling for power against Coco Santini, aging head of the island's Mafia, and Alice and her sons are the chips he's willing to wager. Antoine Stuart, the detective assigned to the case, is jaded and cynical; he is also Coco's sworn enemy. But will the tension between Coco and Antoine (who has sworn to take down the Mafioso at any price) cloud the detective's judgment? With only 72 hours to find her son before he dies, Alice will find herself caught in a treacherous web of constantly shifting alliances and loyalties.

Wadham's prose is spare and unsentimental, breathing life into an isolated community beset by external social pressures and internal political strife. Her characters, each with a seed of emptiness at his or her core, may not be comfortable to be around, but they make for superb reading. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Wadham's debut is a stylishly written thriller set in present-day Corsica, a Mediterranean island ruled by the French, rich in Italian heritage and harboring an underground movement intent on independence from both. The small, dusty island, with its proud, close-knit inhabitants, makes an apt setting for a story that depends mostly on its darkly intriguing characters. Since her husband, Matthieu, died, Alice Aron has left her home in England each summer to stay in Matthieu's birthplace, the Corsican village of Santarosa, along with their young sons, Dan and Sam. But this summer is dangerously different: on the morning of their first day in the village, Sam disappears from the town square. Alice quickly realizes her son has been kidnapped. Police detective Antoine Stuart, a native Corsican with a grim past and few hopes for his future, arrives to lead the investigation. Is the culprit the local godfather, Coco Santini, whom Antoine blames for the murder of his best friend? Was it the pro-independence group known as the Movement? Or are the kidnappers ruthless foreigners in search of ransom money? Antoine and Alice cooperate warily in their increasingly urgent attempts to find Sam. Meanwhile, subplots flourish: one involves a shipment of guns to the Movement, another Santini's long-suffering wife. Wadham's characters are vivid and complex, not always appealing but brutally realized; Antoine and Alice's deftly handled attraction never softens the harsh story or gets in the way of the suspense. American readers may need some time to decode the Corsican bureaucratic hierarchies that figure in the plot; the real story, though, lies in the relationships among the driven, compelling people Wadham has created. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Faber and Faber (April 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571201490
• ISBN-13: 978-0571201495
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,863,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars intensity and grit..., December 22, 2003

By 

JunkyardMessiah "jonkadane" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost (Paperback)

Overall, LOST is a very compelling, dark thriller with real, intense characters and a few unique plot twists. The dialogue is for adults, very hard edge, and utterly lacking in quick quips. Reminiscent of COPLAND, LOST gets involved in the gritty realities of small town (or in this case small island) politics, filled with long-standing jealousies that the author does a wonderful job of illuminating. The structure is tight, though menace could be added to two of the villains in order to heighten tension.

The premise-- that a beautiful widow's child is kidnapped by thugs on a Mediterranean isle, and only a scarred police chief, who is already embroiled in a life long battle with the island mafia, can help her-is so well- conceived and executed that even the seeming cliches seem fresh and new. There are two protagonists, Stuart and Alice, and each are deeply flawed individuals who must overcome their personal demons to find Alice's son. The progression of their romantic relationship is subtle and believable though ultimately tragic. On the whole, a great read.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Nuanced Thriller, November 7, 2000

By 

douglas k ritter (southlake, texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was quite surprised that I was the first to review this title considering the favorable reviews it received in the mainstream press. (At least Ms. Wadham will have one review to read when she checks Amazon!) First, I enjoyed the book, although having grown up near Corsica, where this novel is set, adds a star to my review. The charcters are well drawn out, and the action well paced and realistic. The book is a subtle page turner that you will want to read in one sitting as it races to its conclusion. It details every parent's horror -- a child kidnapped by criminals -- in this case extremists. There is an earnest police detective and the usual assortment of village characters he deals with to solve the crime. But this isn't a detective novel. There are times when it's difficult to tell who in the book is "good or bad", but it doesn't detract from the tale. I was interested in the story because of the foreign locale and I wasn't disappointed.