Missing Link

Elizabeth Kay

Jessica Pierce is a guest on the investigative chat show Missing Link. The hugely popular programme is hosted by Spliff, a quick-thinking media-savvy presenter.

The show features two guests; they will never have met before. But a “heaven or hell” link between them is revealed – either something wonderful, such as a windfall or a long-lost relative, or something appalling, like a false identity or scandal.

Spliff violently disapproves of the way television has been dumbed down and he decides to make a programme which will be so shocking that the series will be taken off the air, questions will be asked, and maybe – just maybe – television will be the better for it.

So when Spliff decides to go out with a bang, who will he take with him?...

Reviews

"A skilled and ingenious piece of work, and a pleasure to read, as Kay delivers jab after wicked jab at the TV programmes we love to hate and stay to watch. Enemies turn into friends, friends into relatives, the horrid turn out to be loveable and vice versa, at such speed this reader had no choice or wish but to read on, horrified and laughing at the same time."
Fay Weldon

"Like the horribly-believable TV game show of the title, Missing Link teases you, tempts you to think you’re as smart as the programme makers who manipulate, backbite and play out cut-throat rivalries behind the scenes. Just when you think you’ve got its measure-as tart satire on mass entertainment, as comedy of manners, even as romance-it opens a trapdoor on dizzying questions of science and morality. Like its enigmatic and dark-edged romantic lead, Elizabeth Kay’s prescient novel layers its witty and intricate mind games with a heartfelt indignation, and even a hint of human vulnerability."
Philip Gross, Author