They are some of Ireland's most famous names, for all the wrong reasons. They are Ireland's missing women, many of them murdered and their bodies hidden by evil killers who remain at large. They include American woman Annie McCarrick who was murdered in the Dublin-Wicklow mountains; Jo Jo Dullard who was abducted and murdered while hitching a lift in County Kildare; and former model Fiona Pender who was seven months pregnant when she and her unborn child were murdered and hidden at an unknown location in the midlands.

And then there are Ireland's two long-term missing children. What ever happened to little Mary Boyle, the seven-year old County Donegal girl last seen walking near her grandparents home over a quarter of a century ago? And where is Philip Cairns, who was only thirteen years old when he was abducted from a Dublin roadside while walking to school in 1986?

With the assistance of the Gardai, and the families concerned, Missing tells the stories of seven missing people - five women and two children - who had so much to live for, but were never given the chance. Missing is a disturbing book. It is also a tribute to the remarkable bravery of ordinary families who have lost a loved one in the most cruel and unexplained of circumstances. It is due to the collective strength of these families that their missing loved ones will never be forgotten.