Light shining in the forest - Paul Torday

'..the best estimate we have shows that every five minutes a child goes missing in the UK'

Norman Stokoe has spent his life climbing the greasy pole. A career civil servant, he knows his way around. He can quote the numbers. He can provide the references. So when the new government decides to appoint regional 'Children's Czars', Norman is an obvious candidate. He settles down in his new leather chair behind his new desk overlooking the River Tyne and waits for the green light to begin his mission. The green light never comes.

What does happen is that two children go missing. Norman has built a career being 'strategic rather than operation' but now, faced with a campaigning journalist and a distraught mother, he is forced to become involved. Meanwhile Geordie Nixon, working deep in the wilderness of Kielder forest is seeing strange things. Are they for real or is he losing his mind? And what place is there in this brave new world for the miraculous?