Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke

Book of the Week: 1 January 2017

Happy New Year! The first book of 2017, in a very short school week, is a mystery about a missing girl called Lizzie Summersall.

Aidan arrived in Abbots Grey with his mum and stepfather Kevin to start a new life. In the three years since he arrived he has settled in to St Agnes’s, his new school, and made a friend called Scobie, a Doctor Who fan and computer nerd. Then one evening, just as he returns from football training, the police arrive to question him about the disappearance of his friend Lizzie. The police think she went to meet someone she met online. Aidan says he knows nothing about it and they were just friends who had a falling out. Is Aiden hiding something?

The story is mostly told in the present tense by Aiden, with a fair proportion of the plot told in the form of Lizzie and Aiden’s conversations on Facebook. Further on in the book, we see the events from the point of view of other characters as the story twists and turns.

If you enjoy mysteries such as 13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough, Running Girl by Simon Mason or The Yellow Room by Jess Vallance, then this is in a similar vein. You can read more about Follow Me Back on Nicci Cloke’s blog here where there is also a serial-style podcast featuring interviews with some of the characters.