HALF THE WORLD AWAY

An extremely powerful, very atmospheric novel about estranged couple Jo and Tom Maddox reunited in a desperate search for their daughter Lori who has gone missing in China.

Lori, a photography graduate, travels to Asia recounting her adventures on her site 'Lori In The Ori-ent'. On the 2nd April she posts a new blog. It’s the last time anyone hears from her. When Lori doesn't respond to phone calls or messages, her parents Jo and Tom, who separated when she was tiny, report her missing. The Chinese police, the PSB, establish that Lori is not at her apartment and hasn't left the country. Her friends don’t know where she is. An international missing person's campaign is launched. Jo leaves her small sons in the care of their father and she and Tom fly out to China to help search for their daughter.

Landing in a totally unfamiliar country, with no knowledge of the customs or language, and receiving scant help from the local authorities, Jo and Tom are forced to turn detective, following in their daughter's footsteps, tracing the people she mentioned in her posts, interviewing her friends, colleagues and students. It's an unbearably difficult challenge and, as the days pass, the fear that Lori is lost for good grows ever larger.

The scenario this thriller explores, of a gap year that goes dramatically wrong, is a parent's worst nightmare and will be of universal interest to readers everywhere.

Cath Staincliffe is an award winning novelist, radio playwright and creator of ITV's hit series Blue Murder. Cath's books have been shortlisted for the CWA Best First Novel award and for the Dagger in the Library. She was joint winner of the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2012. Letters To My Daughter's Killer was selected for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club on ITV3 in 2014. Cath also writes the Scott & Bailey books based on the popular ITV series. She lives with her family in Manchester.