Detective Emilina Stone is thrust into a complex investigation when a 13-year-old girl goes missing in Upstate New York. Abigail Scarborough—stage name Chloe Cates—is the star of a blog her mother, Jennifer, started when she was four. Millions of people follow the blog and the blow-by-blow accounts of Chloe’s life, meaning millions of potential suspects who might have more than a casual interest in the girl.
As Emilina investigates, she quickly realizes Chloe and her family aren’t the perfect, happy unit they appear to be online. Jennifer is obsessed with her daughter’s fame, Chloe’s father Jackson has never had the courage to go against his wife’s wishes, and Chloe’s older brother JJ is struggling with being given little attention by their parents. The case is further complicated by the fact that Emilina knew Jennifer when they were children and the two of them share a horrific secret. Emilina does her best to keep her demons at bay while she searches for Chloe, but the clock is ticking. She must sort through a tangled web of lies to unlock the truth if a missing girl is to be found alive.
Chloe Cates is Missing is a suspenseful mystery thriller written by debut novelist Mandy McHugh. It is well paced, vividly detailed, and filled with characters who are never as straight-forward as they pretend to be. There are countless red-herrings, complex possibilities to sort through, and several surprising revelations to be had. There are also plotlines which explore timely issues such as society’s addiction to the internet, the cruelty internet users are capable of when they face no consequences for their comments, and how lives portrayed online are often drastically different than they are in reality.
As she searches for Chloe, Emilina glimpses the ways the quest for fame can wreak havoc on a family, particularly the effect it has on a 13-year-old girl juggling two identities and struggling to find her own way. A gripping addition to the missing-persons mystery genre, Chloe Cates is Missing will leave readers with a lot to think about long after they’ve finished reading.
