
Kellye Garrett
In a plush, four-floored New Jersey Airbnb with the finest view of Manhattan one could possibly wish for, Missing White Woman‘s protagonist Bree wakes up one morning to find her boyfriend Ty gone, and the dead body of a recently reported missing white woman on the floor of her foyer. Bree – a young Black woman – now finds herself alone and in trouble: in a hostile situation, in an unfamiliar city and with many questions that desperately need answers, and quickly.
For a start, she needs to prove her innocence as a police investigation gets underway. The only person Bree can call who might be able to help her dig her way out of this hole is a lawyer with whom she has a preexisting, complex friendship.
Throughout the chapters of Missing White Woman, author Kelley Garrett’s development of characters are pretty deep, but this does not interfere with the thrilling pace of the plot that rapidly twists and turns in its modern day-city setting. Garrett is no stranger to creating intricate plotlines – her previous thriller Like A Sister went down a treat with crime fiction scholars and critics alike – and Missing White Woman relentlessly keeps the suspense one step ahead of what a seasoned reader of this genre might predict.
Social media influence and mob mentality are thrown into this thrilling equation, with the merits of friendship also tested to their limits as Bree fights to save herself – and find out what happened to Ty. A nailbiting thriller with some serious depth, Missing White Woman not only captures the class and racial inequality problems of today, but also the ferocity of trial by media.
Missing White Woman, Kelleye Garrett (Simon & Schuster)
Price: £16.99/£7.99 Ebook/£15.99 audiobook. Info: here
words DAVID NOBAKHT