When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLainMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Paula McLain's new novel is part thriller, part police procedural, and all fantastic writing.
Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco. When unspeakable tragedy strikes her personal life, she returns to the Northern California village of Mendocino where she spent her preteen and teen years. She soon volunteers to help out find a local missing girl, a task which brings her squarely into her own past, working with the local sheriff who had been a high school friend, a man she bonded with back then when their friend went missing. Anna gets over-invested in her cases, and these are no exception. We follow her as she tracks the girls, pulls together threads no one else has the tenacity to weave, and confronts her own traumas, past and present.
Through it all, McLain's personal experiences inform the difficult story, which includes child abandonment and abuse. She often waxes poetic, which is lovely. Sometimes she oversells her points about the effects of abuse, but maybe that's for the best. In the second half of the book, the narrative picks up speed and becomes a page-turner.
Loved it; couldn't put it down towards the end.
NB: I received a digital galley via NetGalley for review.
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