Despite the author’s reputation for writing novels that serve reliably as sun-lounger entertainment, in Leaving Time Jodi Picoult surprises with a successful deviation from her typical dramatisation of a family’s moral dilemma.

Set against a backdrop of elephant conservation and psychic encounters, my first impression was that the novel had a strong potential to flop. However, Picoult constructs a genuinely gripping detective story, as we follow 13-year-old Jenna’s search for the truth about her mother’s disappearance, and concludes with a plot twist that was not, at least to my untrained eye, obvious from the prologue.

Whilst the glaring impracticalities of the novel require a suspension of disbelief (the involvement of both an alcoholic private detective and washed-up psychic in a 13-year-old’s somewhat delusional quest smacks of the severely unlikely), the disparate elements of this story fuse together against all the the odds to make a very fulfilling literary whole. Leaving Time is written from the perspective of each of its main characters, meaning that it does not feel like a 400-page teenage diary – rather, we get to know all of the protagonists in vivid detail during the course of the story.

The lives of each have been defined by turning points, and it is this exploration of individual trauma that makes the novel so successful. Each character is united by an awareness of their own failings in life and a fear of the past, and their collective sense of loss is a feeling that all readers will be able to identify with.

Intriguingly, the relationships between these characters are mirrored by an unusually in-depth exploration of elephants’ cognitive behaviour. Whilst I appreciate that this may not be to everyone’s taste, I found that this added an interesting layer to the human emotions that form the backbone of the novel.

The book invokes a genuine discussion on the nature of the grieving process; perhaps it is this preoccupation with death that makes the implausibility of the psychic palatable to the reader.

Either way, the various elements of the story undoubtedly come together through its naturalist qualities. Ultimately, Leaving Time is a worthy break from reading scores of academic literature – but then again, what isn’t?

It is not, and does not pretend to be, groundbreaking in its exploration of human nature, but the fact that it incorporates elements of this means Picoult has written more than a simple chick-flick-cum-thriller. Her characters, as ever, prove likeable and their successful interaction with a story line that at first seems unworkable made the novel surprisingly enjoyable. And if that doesn’t sell it to you, maybe the elephants will.