Published 15 January 2019

The elevator pitch: 

Female rage is all the rage. A female cop on a case that forces her to relive her trauma.

Why I liked it: 

First because it's well written with gorgeous descriptive passages, even if the plot is expertly laid out, there is plenty of space for flourishes. Second, you can't help but judge a book by comparison. I recently read The Disappearing by Lori Roy, a very similar book: Based in Florida, a prominent family with a dominant pater familias, it deals with the disappearance of the daughter. But where The Disappearing was heavy-handed, sometimes vague, and tried to stuff too much story in the plot Girls of Glass has way more direction, it's a no fuss, trimmed down, gripping mystery, that uses emotional turmoil for its twists and turns. There is a slew of books, TV shows and movies dealing with female rage these days. What is interesting about this suspense novel is that it plays around with victimhood.  The girls in this book are not at all made of glass, it creates that illusion, of them being weak and fragile, all the while offering interesting fully formed characters, that remaine opaque till the end, to then show you they are made of steel.

What it is about: 

Detective Alice Garner and her partner Joe Nakamura are tasked to investigate the disappearance of the granddaughter of judge Sterling Burke, one of the more influential men in Florida. After the little girl is found dead, her mother Charlotte becomes the prime suspect. And Alice is confronted with her past: the death of her daughter.