Local Woman Missing

How it reads

Local Woman Missing is thriller (domestic thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a suburban setting, in the present day, told in the first person by several narrators. Its central concerns are family, secrets and loss and grief. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 356 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.