What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

I greatly enjoyed this book. It might be the best book I have read thus far this year. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize.

The story starts with ten year old Kate Meaney, who with her creative imagination conducts surveillance on unsuspecting people when she is not in school. She takes notes on their behavior, intent on using her detective skills to stop crime. Most of her adventures are at the local mall, Green Oaks. Eventually, however, she disappears without explanation, and her best friend Adrian, twenty-two years old, is suspicioned as the culprit. He too disappears.

Twenty years later, Lisa is a manager at a music store at that mall. She is unhappy and lost. She does not like her job or her relationship with Ed. She once dreamed of a more fulfilling life, but has only been spiraling farther away from it. Some of the blame rests with her dismay over her brother Adrian's disappearance, believing that he was undoubtedly innocent.

Similarly, Kurt works as a security guard at the mall. He has always sought to please his overbearing father, but has never been able to. His relationship with Nancy ended when she died in a car accident. He too feels stuck and lost in his life, seemingly unable to do anything about it.

What brings these two out of their darkness is Kate Meaney, as both have a connection to her disappearance. Both, unable to believe in themselves, seek refuge and salvation in each other. Together, they help solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance.

The book is about being lost and being found and the power of others to inspire the best in us. With the mall as a backdrop to the story, the book is also about how as a culture our consumerism drives us to lose ourselves in a mass hysteria to buy buy buy. Putting these themes together, the book shows that to find yourself sometimes you have to look to the past and rely on personal relationships with others.