The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall

 

Audrey works as a school counsellor in the town of Franklin, as well as volunteering with the local Search and Rescue Service. She is strongly motivated to help find missing people because years ago, when they were teenagers, her best friend, Janie, disappeared. 

The SAR team think of Audrey as some kind of lucky charm because she often gets a strong feeling that they are in the right place to start looking, and she is usually right. When as part of a search she and Len, her police deputy friend, wander on to private land owned by the Hills, Franklin’s most  prominent family, Audrey’s intuition kicks in and she knows there is something there that she needs to know more about. She knew the Hills siblings when they were all teenagers and decides to reacquaint herself with them.

As well as all the twists and turns about who knew what, who did what, and who is who, there is also a local legend about a witch called Jenny Red Hands who exacts vengeance on men who have harmed women and whose hands are blood-stained.

This is a good psychological thriller, and Audrey is a nicely complex heroine. I’m hoping there may be further books about Audrey and her big, beautiful dog, Barry.

Published by Pan Macmillan

With Friends Like You by Amy Chozick

 Emily lives in New York with her husband, Roman, and their baby  boy. Roman is an Australian who ticks all the boxes in the Australian ditty: ‘Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars”, although Holden in this case is the baby’s name, and the baby has a collection of soft toys which includes kangaroos, koalas, wombats and a quokka; and the baby’s nickname is Koala.

That’s just a bit of fun, however, and I don’t want to give the impression that this is a lighthearted novel. On the contrary it is a deeply disturbing psychological study.  Emily has been traumatised by having gone through a very difficult birthing experience. She is on maternity leave from her job, and although she loves Roman and Holden she has started missing her friend, Daisy, whom she is determined to find. Daisy was Emily’s roommate in college, and she was everything Emily wanted to be, until she suddenly disappeared from Emily’s life.

With Friends Like You is a compelling read. I was blindsided when the truth about Emily and Daisy was revealed. It’s a clever story and one of those that when you get to the end you might want to go back to the beginning and start reading it again, armed with a new perspective. I can recommend it highly!

Published by Dutton