Heartbreaking

A very emotional and heartbreaking book, written from the heart of a mother to give an account of the truth.

This book makes an important contribution to increasing awareness of the problem of child abductions
and the fact that there are serious shortcomings in how police forces address the problem.
After almost 10 years, Madeleine is still missing.
I hope Madeleine can be found or find her way back home. ( )

Kate McCann's very personal account of those torturous years. A testament to the human spirit in the face of unbelievable adversity.

After reading this book, I gave more credibility to the notion that my case may well have affected theirs, and not just the other way around, such is the detail in the time-line.

I thought the account of their negative treatment by the police and the media was balanced given the utter frustration at the impact it was having on their search prospects. Most people would probably have expected several pages worth of expletives, but as the book supports the ongoing search, they rose above that to maximise its worth for that goal.

I have followed the story intensely in the media since it tragically burst onto the world stage in 2007. But it was quite absorbing to get the McCanns' perspective even though I knew the general story.

They really should receive everyone's unreserved support. They are human beings after all, suffered every parents worst nightmare and are still missing their daughter. ( )

It is absolutely awful what the McCann family have gone through. What happened to them could have happened to anyone.

Kate and Gerry are doctors from Leicestershire They went with friends (other couples and their children) to a child friendly family resort in Portugal in 2007. One evening a good way through the holiday after settling the twins and almost 4 year old Madeleine to sleep in the holiday apartment they joined a table of nine for dinner at a Tapa bar about as far away as the end of a garden.. They took turns checking up on the children believing they were perfectly safe and knowing they always slept soundly.. Part the way through the evening when checking the children , Madeleine was gone.

Not only did the McCanns, their family and friends have to go through the agony of Madeleine's abduction but also the awful handling of Madeleine's disappearance by the Portugese police and rumours written as fact in newspapers. They even accused Kate and Gerry as having something to do with Madeleine's disappearance. The mishandling took away from actually finding Madeleine. There were two crucial sightings of a man seen carrying a child in the street about the time Madeleine went missing. This was not investigated.

Four years have passed and the McCanns have not given up finding Madeleine. They also support organisations and initiatives for missing, abducted and exploited children. ( )

As a follower of true crime, it is only right that I read and reviewed Madeleine, especially as I have previosuly reviewed another book, Vanished by Danny Collins, also about the abduction. For those of you who have not followed the story, British 3 year old, Madeleine McCann went missing whilst on holiday with her family in Portugal in 2007. It is not known what happened to her, and she has not been seen since, the popular theory is that she was abducted from her bed, whilst unsupervised in the apartment one night.

Kate McCann's book is, as you might expect, very emotional and puts across Madeline's parents views on her disappearance and the subsequent police investigation. Of course this means that the abduction theory is the only one presented in the book. At times, particularly when discussing why she left her children alone in the apartment, it comes across as over-justifying her and her husband's actions but essentially seems like an honest and not over-exaggerated account. There is a particular focus by McCann on her family's treatment at the hands of the police when they were declared suspects in the disappearance, and at times it is easy to see how horrific it must be to be publicly accused of such a crime, and feel that the real abductor was getting away. The despair is palatable.

However, the book does not answer many key questions surrounding the case and, as expected, is very one sided. There is also a lot of criticism directed at others involved in the case, such as the hotel staff, police and other residents some of this unjustified and which comes across as a ploy to increase the reader's sympathy for the McCanns.

Overall the book is vivid and detailed, although some of the recollections are dubious because of their detail, and although it presents a one-sided view of events, it is very readable. The purpose of the book is dubious, the official line is that it will raise awareness and the profits will go to the fund to help find Madeleine, however, from some of the content, it seems more like retaliation for all the police leaks about the investigation, at a time when the McCanns, by Portuguese law, could not speak out.

I wouldn't recommend this if you want a broad, unbiased overview of the case, but it does provide a good insight into her parents' feelings and actions. ( )

This is, by far, the most harrowing book that I have ever read. I would be lying were I to say that it did not produce a few moist hankies (And I'm a bloke!). I wanted it to answer the unanswerable question: how can anyone live with the pain that the McCanns must have suffered? When my children were younger (the youngest is fast approaching his 20th birthday), I used to wonder how I would cope were one of them to die. Fortunately, the nearest that I came to finding out was when my daughter was struck by a car and broke her leg.

To have a child abducted is so much worse than a death: at least with a corpse there is some form of closure. Horrible it may be, but life does go on and, even if things are never quite the same, some form of normality reintroduces itself. Kate McCann paints an understandable picture of the guilt that she still feels, enjoying herself whilst Madeleine is still missing.

I knew that Kate and Gerry were suspects, for a while, but one area of this case that I had not properly considered was the way in which the police were so keen to blame the parents. Admittedly, I have only read one side of the story, but it has always seemed ludicrous, to me, that anyone could believe that the McCanns were stupid enough to have killed their own daughter, and then done everything in their power to keep the case on the front of every newspaper in the World! Not the behaviour of your average criminal!

Kate McCann probably comes as near to the answer as we are likely to get, when she speculates that it is just too horrible to consider that this type of thing can happen to our children: if we blame the dreadful parents, then our children are safe, because we wouldn't do such a terrible thing.

The book is also an interesting read upon the subject of the fourth estate; they can be incredibly useful - who would have heard of the disappearance of Madeleine without their input? At the same time, they can, and do, print stories that are entirely fabricated. Most people do not have the financial clout to challenge them and, even when one does - as was the case for the McCanns - the press seem to take a million, or two, in fines, as just part of the cost of a good story.

This strikes me as a very honest book. Sometimes when reading I thought, "You're over justifying your actions." but, the more I read, the more I could see that they had been challenged about every little thought and deed. They have been forced to question themselves and justify everything.

I took an interest, at the time of Madeleine's abduction but, like most people, the story has drifted from my conscious thoughts: after reading this book, Madeleine - and the rest of the McCann family will remain in my prayers for a long time. ( )