In the 1990s, eight women vanished from the same area in Ireland. Their cases are officially unsolved, their bodies mostly undiscovered, their stories untold.
The trouble with true crime is that, with so many ongoing cases, it is easy to overlook individual ones, especially when the trail has grown cold. In this book, the author strives to correct this by telling us the tales of these women and many others who were abducted and murdered in Ireland during this time.
I found the writing engaging and liked how the author made the setting come alive with her discussion of the culture and social mores of Ireland during the time of the disappearances. It provided much needed context about the kind of world that these women lived in and why their stories may have been overlooked.
However, the writing felt oddly stream-of-consciousness, and the many women mentioned means that the author did not go into much detail about any of them. Also, she makes a lot of casually thought out assertions about the crimes and where the bodies may be, as well as relating a lot of hearsay – what ‘everyone’ knows about the cases that can’t be truly put into print – which made for a pretty patchy reading experience.
Ultimately an interesting starting point for these cases, but the whole of the book felt under-researched.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
