In the end, I enjoyed The Night She Disappeared. It is the first Lisa Jewell I have read and while I thought there were some very good things about it, I had some reservations.
The narrative is in three timelines: it opens with Sophie moving to live next to a boarding school in the country where her partner is starting as Headteacher. I emerges that two young people went missing 18 months earlier and Sophie, a writer of cosy detective fiction, becomes involved in trying to solve the mystery of their disappearance. The other time frames are immediately after the disappearance and, intermittently, events leading up to it.
It’s a decent story, well told. Lisa Jewell writes well and unfussily, and she is especially good at creating believable characters and relationships. For example, I thought her depiction of an increasingly controlling partner was very good and seemed fresh, even though it’s a pretty well-worn idea in fiction now. The psychology and motivation of her characters was good, too, and far more plausible than is often the case. No-one came up with absurd reasons for not going to the police, nor went into obvious danger without telling anyone, which was another big plus.
The thing is, I almost gave up about a third of the way through because I got pretty bored and it seemed like some rather tired tropes were being introduced to build up tension. In fact, I went back to the book, which had picked up very well by half way, and I enjoyed the second half very much; it was thoughtful, tense, plausible and involving
So...overall a good read, but be prepared for a bit of a turgid start.
(My thanks to Century for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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