Then She Vanishes

A double murder shakes the small seaside town of Tilby. Heather, a 32-year-old mother of a small boy has killed Clive Wilson, 58, and his mother Deirdre, 76, in the early hours before attempting suicide. But why did she do it? Did she even know them? Her mother is devastated and so is Heather’s childhood friend Jess, now a journalist with a newspaper in Bristol. For almost twenty years, they had not been in contact, but now she is reaching out to the family Jess once regarded as her own. How can one single family be stricken by fate that often? Heather’s father was killed in an accident when a gun was fired, her older sister Flora went missing at the age of sixteen, and now this. There’s something rotten, obviously, but can Jess figure it out? Another page-turning mystery by Claire Douglas that hooked me immediately. I had high expectations that were totally fulfilled: many mysteries to solve, twists and turns, unexpected links and whole lot of characters that are not to be trusted. Just what you would expect from a great thriller. What I liked most about the story were the secrets that everybody keeps, those small things that seem to be without any importance but suddenly become crucial but then it’s already too late to tell them. And then, people have to live with the knowledge that they are keeping some major facts that when being told could have saved somebody or prevented a lot of things. The plot is quite complex, at the beginning it all seems quite obvious, yet, the more it advances the more characters are added and the more multi-layered it becomes. Whenever you think you have seen through it all, your theory simply crumbles and falls – and this works out until the very last page. Simply a great read that I could hardly put down.

A very solid novel that starts a bit slow (while everything is being set up) but then turns out to be really interesting. It kept me guessing how it will all play out in the end. Is Heather really a murderer. Or not? And why did someone shot these old people in the first place? I found this storyline, along with the flashbacks to 1994 with Flora, the most interesting. Jess' own storyline was not necessary in my opinion, but it also didn't bother me that much. It added some drama and some suspense, but it also interrupted the main story at times. The ending was really good. Although you could have guessed some of the revelations already, there still were surprises in store for the reader. All in all though I would say it's more of a family drama than a thriller. And the title could be better.