A parent's worst nightmare

The premise is a parent's worst nightmare: a little girl goes missing at a children's fair and is remembered for her red duffel coat. Her mother then spends years waiting by the phone for news of her. Hamer's writing, though unrelentingly gloomy, does a good job of creating female voices in distress and a suspenseful, forward-moving narrative.

The main character is a bit two-dimensional, like an actor in a thriller, existing as part of a bigger story. Beth is a single mum, though "prettier than the other mums" with long brown hair and a kind smile. She is bitterly divorced from Paul, with whom she ran a tea import/export business. Paul now lives with a younger woman, Lucy, for whom Beth feels a raw jealousy. Beth lives only for her daughter Carmel, a dreamy child who makes up little games for herself.

The opening chapters are full of foreboding. One day Carmel says mysteriously: "You realise Mum that I won't always be with you forever." And on her eighth birthday, she runs off into a hedge maze. But on the day she actually goes missing, Carmel doesn't mean to get lost. She is just in a bad mood at a children's fair: "It's like everything's wrong - especially me. Now I just want to be on my own." Carmel becomes intrigued by some children's books and takes one under a table. When she crawls out, an old man with round glasses claims to be Carmel's estranged grandfather. He says: "Carmel, it's your mother, she's had a terrible accident." In that moment, Carmel's childhood is over.

It turns out that 'Gramps' is a raving mad Christian preacher who believes that Carmel has the healing powers of Jesus. "She's truly my child and she belongs to me," the man declares in a delusional and overly familiar letter to God. It's easy to despise Gramps for his utter selfishness, though he is internally and physically weak. In an escape that requires some suspension of disbelief, he and his Mexican wife Dorothy somehow whisk Carmel to Bible-belt America. Thus begins Carmel's circus act in stuffy church basements where, working with Gramps and his wife, she lays her hands on America's credulous frail and sick.

So far, so sad. Hamer often divides the narrative between Beth and Carmel's desolate voices which make for a satisfying contrast. Written in the past tense, Beth's narrative is full of guilt: "How many times have I gone over what happened next? How many times more?" In contrast, Carmel's voice is in the present tense and has a charming child-like logic. "Days are like beads and I've lost count of how many there's been," she says, trying to make sense of her new life. There's also a deep pity for Carmel who desperately wants her caretakers to love her. Both narratives are linked by images of bright red clothing and mutual feelings of grief.

At other times, Hamer's writing can feel formal and metallic. Her narrative concentrates on changes in the physical world rather than allowing for more personalised responses: "The fields rolled away from me, shining in the light. The air was the colour of a golden peach. The leaves had opened up their tiny fists on the beech tree." Though these images are intriguing, too much of this kind of writing feels frivolous after a while.

Furthermore, the fact that Carmel has special healing powers is unconvincing. Magic realism in fiction can be troubling because it goes against all logic, and the reader is not sure what to believe. By laying her hands on the fragile heads of those who can't walk, is Carmel actually doing others some good? This point remains unresolved by Hamer.

It's a relief that the novel doesn't go down the path of sexual exploitation but remains an exploration of belief and belonging. Near the end, some good news arrives. And there is also a slice of American cherry pie, devoured by Carmel, to put a bit of sweetness back into life.