ENTERTAINMENT

It is no great surprise that in 2007, when Britain was obsessed with the Madeleine McCann case, a novel about a missing child should resonate with readers there. What Was Lost won Catherine O'Flynn the prestigious Costa First Novel Award and made her the British book trade's "Newcomer of the Year."

What is notable is that the novel should translate so well on this side of the Atlantic.

Set in the postindustrial midlands city of Birmingham, a sort of English Cleveland, the book has at its dark heart the Green Oaks megamall. According to an anonymous shopper, one of the many voices heard in the story, this is a sick building, a suffocating world of dead-end corridors, jobs, lives.

Among those looking for a way out is Lisa Palmer, the duty manager in the Your Music CD store. She has to contend with daft customers, cliché-spouting managers and "Steve, the volatile Easy Listening buyer." But Lisa's biggest problems have to do with the past: "Most people think it's a rare and difficult thing for a person to vanish completely ... But Lisa had seen it happen twice in her life."

Back in the 1980s, when Lisa was just coming into her teens, Kate Meaney, a bright local girl with a passion for playing detective, disappeared. Lisa's older brother, Adrian, a college graduate whose ambition did not seem to rise above working in his father's candy store, became the prime suspect and disappeared himself.

Lisa is not the only character haunted by the not-so-cold case. Late at night, a security guard at the mall named Kurt catches a glimpse of the ghost-child on TV, carrying the stuffed monkey she vanished with 20 years before. It's a quietly chilling moment, showcasing Ms. O'Flynn's subtle power as a writer.

Her talent is for keeping readers on their toes. Just when you think you are settling into a quirky English mystery in the tradition of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Ms. O'Flynn reveals she has bigger and broader ambitions. Just when you think the mood is becoming a little too somber, she unleashes a comic riff that nicely skewers consumer culture without getting preachy. Just when you think you have the crime solved, she raises new possibilities.

Of course, being a first novel, What Was Lost isn't without its faults. There are a couple of lapses into melodrama: "Maybe he thought it was time to move on, but the center wasn't ready to let him go." But a few blots in the stylistic copybook do not significantly interfere with the impact of this shrewd story. Ms. O'Flynn is a welcome newcomer in the U.S. as well.

Robert Cremins is a Houston-based novelist.

Catherine O'Flynn

(Holt Paperbacks, $14)