It is every parent’s worst nightmare. Stephanie Harker is travelling through the security gates at O’Hare airport when she is taken into a perspex box having set off the metal detectors. Made to wait outside, five-year-old Jimmy is led away, by hand, by a uniformed officer. Stephanie’s panic and shouts lead security to believe she is a threat, and she is tasered brutally to the ground amidst her screams of protest while Jimmy disappears into the distance unnoticed by anyone but her.
Stephanie becomes frantic when a uniformed man leads Jimmy away. The situation seems worse to Stephanie as she is a British citizen, in Chicago’s O’Hare airport traveling with a five year old to whom she is not related but plans to adopt.
Eventually she is able to convince agents from the FBI that she is blameless but by this time Jimmy has been abducted. Stephanie, a single woman who makes an adequate but less than glamorous salary, has an unusual relationship with young Jimmy. She had just finished ghost writing a book authored by a young woman made famous by her appearance on a reality television show. The woman, Scarlett Higgins, had a relationship with Joshu Patel, a rock star of dubious ability. Though Scarlett married Joshu shortly before Jimmy’s birth, Joshu has had little interest in his son. Jimmy makes his home in a “family” composed of his mother, a housekeeper, his aunt Leanne, and Stephanie.
As a reality television show star, Scarlett is presented as a beautiful but intellectually challenged young woman. As Stephanie grows to know her, she realizes that Scarlett is both smart and an accomplished enough actress to portray herself as barely literate. As the two women work on Scarlett’s biography, they become quite close especially during and after Jimmy’s birth.
The events leading to Stephanie’s trip from England to the United States with young Jimmy in tow are at once outlandish, yet perfectly reasonable. When the child is abducted there are numerous possibilities as to his abductor. The case becomes the joint project of FBI agent Vivian McKuras and Scotland Yard Detective Nick Nikolaides. Because Stephanie was at first a suspect and because she is close to both the family and Jimmy, she is able to offer insight and possible leads more quickly than either investigator could unearth.
Reading Vanishing Point is a learning experience. McDermid has done her homework and offers insights into the diverse elements of her narrative. For instance, in the opening scene at O’Hare airport she notes that unlike their European counterparts, a passenger in the United States only has to go through security once… at the point of origin of their trip. Therefore anyone who has arrived on another flight landing at O’Hare would be past the security checkpoint and would have the opportunity to abduct Jimmy.
Excellent et imprévisible...
