The debut novel from Zoë Rankin – who grew up in Scotland, but now lives in New Zealand – is a propulsive thriller that opens in a remote New Zealand town. Anya, an eight-year-old girl, stumbles out of the dense bush. She’s disorientated and hungry and makes her way to the general store where she proceeds to set about the display of cold fruits. Lewis, the local constable, is called and he comes to collect her. He sees a dishevelled girl in something of a state. Her clothes are tattered, and she has blood on her. But these are not the things that startle him. It’s her red hair. It’s her green eyes. It's her face. She looks exactly like another young girl who also emerged from the bush – but nearly twenty years earlier. That girl was Effie, who now lives in Scotland. Lewis gives Effie a call and asks if she’ll return to New Zealand in order to help solve the riddle of Anya, who has clammed up and won’t answer any questions. We then learn that Effie was brought up in the bush, and lived in an out-of-the-way shack with her mother, father and siblings. The novel’s chapters then alternate between the present day and Effie’s past. ‘The Vanishing Place’ is a novel teeming with atmosphere – Rankin obviously knows the New Zealand outback well – and she deftly handles the many twists and turns that come to the fore as the narrative slowly unfurls. She even finds room to include a will-they-won’t-they love story that doesn’t interfere with the main narrative too much. RM

Published by Viper