After the Book Taster introduced us to the books of Claire Douglas, I had made a decision that I need to read her backlist. So, one of my reads in February was ‘The Girls who Disappeared’ (as I found it at a little bit of a bargain price).
This was another great twisty thriller, with atmosphere built from the first page, and a fantastic strong female lead in the form of the journalist Jenna Halliday.
This is a small-town mystery. Twenty years earlier, Olivia Rutherford was in a car accident with her friends, but when she wakes up, the other girls have gone. For twenty years, there has been no explanation for what happened that night, but as the anniversary approaches, Jenna Halliday wants to do a true crime podcast in an attempt to see if it exposes any new information. However, it seems that some people in this small town will go to extreme measures to ensure that nothing new is exposed – or to ensure that any other secrets are exposed.
The small-town setting adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere, as does the forest and the road where the accident happened. Claire Douglas is excellent at using the setting to add to the tension of the story that is being told.
As it is a thriller, it is quite hard to say too much about the plot of the book, other than you are left feeling that everyone has a secret that they are trying to keep hidden, and you never really know who is genuine as a character. It is a quite a ride from start to finish – with a fantastic reveal when we reach the conclusion.