Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister review

Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister: The review

If you’ve read Gillian’s books before, you know what to expect: a high stakes thriller but a story that’s character-led, with emotion at the heart. Caller Unknown, her latest book, is no different. It’s a tale of parental love, of letting go, and of the lengths parents push themselves to in order to protect their children.

Set in the Texan desert, protagonist Simone has just flown out to spend some time with her eighteen-year-old daughter, Lucy, who has been at camp for the summer. Off to university soon, this was supposed to be a wonderful opportunity to spend time together. But on their first night in a remote cabin, Lucy is taken. Simone wakes up to Lucy’s empty bed, and a strange phone with an ominous message on it.

She has to follow the instructions of the message if she wants to get her daughter back. And no matter what she does, she cannot tell the police.

Simone’s husband thinks it’s a terrible idea. The police should handle it. But she knows better. She’s Lucy’s mother, after all, and nothing is more important than getting her back safe, alive, no matter what it takes. Even if it means breaking the law multiple times. Would you do the same for your children?

Caller Unknown is absolutely loaded with emotion, pouring with Simone’s love for her daughter. Sometimes a selfish love, but an all-consuming love. I’ve no doubt any parent will empathise with her situation, and they too will wonder what they’d do if they were in Simone’s shoes.

It’s beautifully written, as McAllister’s work always is, but the tension of the situation is sometimes lost in the slow, meandering descriptions. Days pass without much action, but perhaps that’s the real nature of this type of situation: lives are at stake but you simply need to wait, to go through the motions.

Even not being a parent though, I felt every one of Simone’s emotions, my heart hurting for every last decision she made, whether it was right or wrong. This is a story that will stay with me, and if you enjoy emotion-led thrillers where the stakes are life or death, then you should read this one too.

Thanks to Netgalley and Michael Joseph for providing an advanced digital copy of the book.