Pandora's Box by Erin Kinsley

 Imagine you’ve found the perfect gift for someone you love. 

As you wrap it in well-chosen paper, tie round a ribbon and write your message on the card, you’re full of anticipation of their pleasure when it’s opened. And as you hoped, they’re delighted with your choice, thanking you with warm smiles and a hug. 

Except that weeks later, your gift derails their whole life.

An unintended gift of a poisoned chalice is at the heart of my third emotional thriller, Missing, when a young woman on uneasy terms with her sister buys her a present potentially spring-loaded with more misfortunes than Pandora’s box. 

Like most crime writers, I’m intrigued by every kind of mystery, from the true identity of Jack the Ripper to the unsolved disappearance of Claudia Lawrence. And that love of mysteries makes me unapologetically a fan of Long Lost Family, a TV programme popular on both sides of the Atlantic, whose speciality is re-uniting mothers with children they were forced to give up for adoption decades ago, and siblings separated at birth. Participants often contact the programme after years of fruitless searching, and are frequently overwhelmed to find themselves in emotional meetings before the closing credits roll. 

But how does Long Lost Family so often succeed in tracking people down where its hugely invested and committed participants have previously failed? Simply because it solves these ‘cold cases’ using a very contemporary tool: a home-test DNA kit.

DNA testing has come a long way in the thirty years since it was first used in the UK to secure a conviction in a court of law. The case was the killing of Dawn Ashworth by Colin Pitchfork, a baker from Leicestershire. Ultimately, Pitchfork was convicted of two murders, described by the judge at his trial as ‘particularly sadistic’, and his release from prison this summer (2021) is the cause of some controversy. Sentenced today rather than under 1980s law, his crimes would have attracted a whole-life tariff.

From that point forward, DNA testing began to take a central role in crime detection, and also became more commonplace in the area of family law, to establish paternity. Before long, genealogy sites like Ancestry.com took the short step to packaging DIY kits aimed at the burgeoning numbers of people researching their personal history and family trees. 

Sounds like a cool and unique gift, wouldn’t you say? A simple test and an eight-week wait could save you years of trawling through census records online, or scouring the ledgers of ancient parish records in cold and draughty churches to trace your elusive ancestors. 

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for some people – including the sisters in Missing – a DNA test reveals shocking information, opening cans of worms that can’t be resealed and undermining carefully curated family secrets. 

Of course, those digging for their roots have always run the risk of uncovering potentially uncomfortable truths - the date of a marriage only days before a birth (or no record of any marriage at all), a death from syphilis or addiction, maybe a dishonourable mention in a newspaper report of court proceedings – but whatever was hidden was usually far back in the past.

But an unexpected DNA test result impinges on people still very much alive, and for some they throw up deeply troubling insights, proving that at a molecular level, they’re not the person they thought they were. 

What happens when it turns out your uncle is your father, your mother isn’t your mother or your brother shares no blood with you at all? Those on the receiving end of unexpected results are bewildered and confused. Often, they want answers to new questions they may never get, especially if those with knowledge are already dead. Then, whether they like it or not, they’ve inherited the family secret, and must make the decision whether to share it, or keep it to themselves as it’s been kept from them. 

The knowledge those kits offer is intriguing and enticing, but just like Pandora’s box, it might be better not to lift the lid. 

There is such a thing as too much information, and sometimes, ignorance is bliss. 

Missing by Erin Kinsley (Headline) Out Now

A mother walks into the sea... and never comes back. Why? One perfect summer day, mother of two Alice walks into the sea . . . and never comes back. Her daughters - loyal but fragile Lily, and headstrong, long-absent Marietta - are forcibly reunited by her disappearance. Meanwhile, with retirement looming, DI Fox investigates cold cases long since forgotten. And there's one obsession he won't let go: a tragic death twenty years before. Can Lily and Marietta uncover what happened to their mother? Will Fox solve a mystery that has haunted him for decades? As their stories unexpectedly collide, long-buried secrets will change their lives in unimaginable ways.