Imagine if you forgot yourself, disappeared, and created a new self and life in a place where you are a stranger - how long would it be until the past caught up with you?

The mysterious art dealer, the Countess Rivers, is in jail for the traumatic murder she cannot remember. As she paints and writes, readers are taken on her last art collecting trip, that did not go according to plan. From the art world in London to an artist in an Australian sub tropical forest, a lost object of desire returns with unforeseen consequences.

What is the significance of the violinist and the music haunting her?

Without images, and without the non-fiction sections, Ruth described Missing as the ‘abridged edition' of Australian Fugue: The Antipode Room, her novel first published in 2014. Missing is also known as Australian Fugue: Missing.

First published in paperback December 2015. This is the original paperback edition with minor revisions.

Reviews

Forget Houellebecq, I like Skilbeck. This is of course in relation to the French author. I had read all his books, and the new one Submission came to us about the same time as Ruth Skilbeck's Missing. I was compelled to read Missing. It is female-centric for one. I did love many of Houellebecq's books but when I started reading Skilbeck's Missing and then his new one, I could not read his - Karen Kennedy, author of Deeply Felt, Reflections on Religion and Violence within the Anarchist Turn

Really enjoyed it. I liked the way the characters develop, and the pace of the writing. I find the psychology exciting and in many instances I revisit something that I experienced myself. The dear kinky boffin! The snorting gallery owner! The end chapter with[Skilbeck's] observation on Velázquez is fabulous- Natasha Williams, artist