Maike Wetzel

LONGLISTED FOR THE CWA DAGGER AWARD FOR FICTION IN TRANSLATION A missing child is a nightmare for any family. But what happens when they come back? Eleven-year-old Elly is missing. After an extensive police search she is presumed dead, and her family must learn to live with a gaping hole in their lives. Then, four years later, she reappears. But soon her parents and sister are plagued by doubts. Is this stranger really the same little girl who went missing? And if not, who is she? Elly is a gripping tale of grief, longing, and doubt, which takes every parent’s greatest fear and lets it play out to an emotionally powerful, memorable climax. It is a literary novel with all the best qualities of a thriller.

Hyytävä psykologinen trilleri kaipauksen pimeästä puolesta Elly on 11-vuotias, kun hän katoaa jälkiä jättämättä. Neljä vuotta myöhemmin tyttö yllättäen löytyy elossa ja pahasti traumatisoituneena. Onko tyttö joka löytyi todella Elly? Kipeät ja kalvavat kysymykset murentavat perhettä vähä vähältä ja paljastavat ihmisen heikoimmillaan.

‘Recently something funny happened. There was no summer, no autumn either.’ With this opener Maike Wetzel begins exploring that moment in life when the breakneck experience of growing up suddenly changes gear and slows down. A young woman sees a dead body for the first time; a sister watches her anorexic sibling transform into different person; a girl pieces together the facts of a custody battle she’s not been let in on. Wetzel’s stories catch people when some part of their lives has been put on pause, leaving them so adrift only acts of obsession or self-destruction provide direction. Wetzel’s stories have great depth of focus. In the background, an over-eager teacher might be explaining the facts of life in unnecessary, lurid detail, but in the foreground students will be taking drastic measures, in secret; a gymnastics class may be limbering up for an impressive display, but in close-up, dietcrazed girls faint in alarming numbers. With pared down but insistent language, Wetzel achieves a poise and clarity and presents lives that are as arresting as they are arrested.