Local Woman Missing by Maria Kubica is an adult crime thriller, weaving together multiple perspectives and timelines to create a whirlwind novel filled with tension, secrets, betrayal and questions. Many many questions.

I will try and remain as spoiler-free as possible in this review, so let me start by noting what I enjoyed. I do have to give a round of applause to Maria for her stellar depiction of child narration – not only the authentic voice of a teenager but the authentic voice of someone who had no schooling past their early childhood years. The perspectives of these two characters in particular really hooked me into the story and made the experiences feel a whole lot more impactful and thrilling than other books in the same sub-genre I have picked up over the years. There is a decent sense of pacing and paranoia in this read too which held my focus and had me working through the options and details for the right answers.

I will say that I was indifferent to several of the details and themes of the book which did hinder my immersion and enjoyment a little. It’s not that this is a bad book – on the contrary it’s good – but it is simply that, for my tastes, the climactic portion of this tale fell flat and the denouement felt lacklustre. Once the details were brought to light (Maria does get points for that initial reveal) everything just seemed to settle and still before we even got to the juicy bits, like it was already ending before the final scene was staged. That and the loose ends that tied up without any problems even though we saw through other events in the novel that significant actions would need to be taken in order for things to be alright. Some relationships felt underdeveloped even though they were meant to be pretty solid and some characters served only one purpose and I’m uncertain as to whether or not they were featured to spark a sense of discomfort and disgust or simply as a plot detail.

Local Woman Missing was a decent read, but I would only rate it a 4/5. Overall, I think the tension and pacing that had been built up over the novel was let down too early and the characters were just a touch underdeveloped and uninteresting for me to care about them or feel intrigued by their involvement in the events.