Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Is there a fun way to write about a child gone missing?

Obviously, children are precious, and them disappearing in real life deserves, you know, seriousness.

But in fiction, anything is possible. Child abduction is at the center of Sarah Harmon's novel,

All the Other Mothers Hate Me. But if you can't tell from that title, it's really about the

harried nature of motherhood and the sometimes questionable decisions parents make.

Harmon talked to M. P.I.R. S. Ayesha Roscoe about writing a light and funny book about missing

kids and veering away from the

dispassionate, hard-boiled male detectives that are the stars of so many other crime thrillers.

That's coming up.

Florence Grimes is a hot mess.

She's shopping and about to shoplift a pricey outfit she thinks she needs when ping, ping, ping, ping,

her phone gets a rapid series of messages.

Emergency at school. Get here quick. My eyes dart across the screen, trying to make sense of what's

happening. Police are on their way. A warm, woozy feeling washes over me.

What's going on? I type. No one replies. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I try again. What is going on? But the other mothers just ignore me. The group chat goes silent.

I throw my sweatshirt on top of the body suit and barge

out of the dressing room, racing towards the escalator. My heart hammers in my chest as I pound out a

text to Dylan on my phone. Are you okay? Text me back, I command right away. I wipe the sweat from

my forehead and stare at my phone, willing my son to reply. Last scene, four hours ago,

his profile taunts me. There's been a kidnapping at her 10-year-old son's London prep school,

and over the next 300 pages or so, Florence will make a series of questionable choices

...