Stevie‘s review of The Girls Left Behind by Emily Gunnis
Women’s Detective Fiction published by Hachette Book Group 01 Aug 23
The more that technology, especially that around mobile phones, advances, the trickier it can be to build suspense and obstacles into detective fiction, particularly police procedurals. One consequence may be an increase in stories within the genre that are set in the recent past, which is fine with me, especially when that means mysteries with their pivotal events occurring during multiple decades within my lifetime. In this case, the main happenings are spread over the 40 years of one police officer’s career, with linked stories taking place in 1975, 1985 and 2015, and a secondary plot taking place during World War II.
In 1975, Constable Jo Hamilton is still relatively new to the force and even newer to attending risky crime scenes, when she attends a reported domestic violence incident. Already haunted by the recent (presumed) suicide of a teenager from a local children’s home, Jo fears for the lives of the two children in the house where their father is beating their mother. In her rush to save the girls, Jo is unable to prevent a fire breaking out and the children end up at that same home themselves, a consequence Jo regrets for her entire career.
Returning to the force in 1985, after a career break to raise her daughter, one of Jo’s first cases concerns the disappearance of the older of those girls – assumed by all but Jo to have run away – and Jo spends the next 20 years wondering if she could have done more to locate the girl or to have prevented whatever happened to her in the first place. Finally, in 2015, a year before Jo is set to retire at the level of Superintendent, the mystery Is partially solved when the bones of the missing girl are found in a shallow grave. Jo sets out to bring the person responsible to justice but finds herself shut out by her superiors and largely unsupported by her family. Meanwhile, the younger sister of the dead girl – now working as a carer herself – is also determined to solve the mystery.
The two women distrust each other, but each has access to information that is unavailable to the other, and it soon becomes clear that the killer is still close by and keen to ensure that his crimes remain unsolved. Yes, crimes: it soon becomes clear that the other runaway was a victim of the same killer and had been targeted for very similar reasons.
I liked the way these two very different women had been shaped by the events that had involved them both and also by their individual family circumstances. Jo comes from a family of farmers and police officers, whose relationship with her own mother is strained for reasons that become clear to the readers as we learn more about Jo’s mother’s early life as a wartime motorcycle dispatch rider, her friendship with the couple who later become the managers of the children’s home, and her ill-fated affair with a Canadian also based at Bletchley Park.
Unfortunately, I found the wartime story to be less engaging than the other parts of the book and would have liked to have seen more page-time devoted to the more recent events instead. That said, I’d like to read more from this author and would recommend this book to fans of mysteries set in any of the eras it covers.
Grade: B
Summary:
1985. Separated from her little sister at the children’s home where they are taken as orphans, Holly Moore is a troubled teenager in need of love. When she meets a man who promises to take care of her, she hopes her luck has finally changed.
2015. The clock is ticking for Superintendent Jo Hamilton when the discovery of a young woman’s remains takes her back to an unsolved case from the past. As a constable, Jo was often called out to deal with runaways from Morgate House, but when Holly Moore disappeared – after another female resident fell from the cliffs – Jo was convinced the home was hiding something. Now, with only days before her forced retirement, Jo decides to track down Holly’s sister and re-open the case. But will the trail lead her disturbingly close to home?
A girl disappeared, a terrible wrong, and powerful people with something to hide . . . Discover the brand new emotional and thrilling novel from the bestselling author of The Girl in the Letter
Read an excerpt.
