The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joël Dicker

Author: Joël Dicker

Title: The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Published: 2020

Pages: 640

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

     In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of four murders. Two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and identify the killer. hen, twenty years later and just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994 and that the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again. But before she can give any more details, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the possibility that her suspicions might have been proved true. What happened to Stephanie Mailer? What did she know? And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?

     Joël Dicker has written a great many novels in his native tongue of French, but the few that seem to have made it into English have apparently passed me by. It was only when a friend of mine said she had just finished this one and that it would be worth my time did I decide to reach out for this author. So having not looked at the page count before ordering it I was a little surprised when this huge book turned up in my letter box. Whilst I am not averse to reading longer books it is I suppose not so often that I will choose one. But the blurb did sound very intriguing to me and it would be somewhat a waste of me to put off reading it just because of its length. Sometimes you just have to dive in and let the book take you where it will and if you are really lucky then it will take you on an amazing ride. After all, could his millions of readers all be that wrong?

      To say there is a lot going on in this book I feel would be an understatement. Each page is filled and one can not help but have a racing mind from start to finish. So it came as a good thing for me that our narrative is broken up between a gaggle of heroes as our author plots and schemes against us. In order to tell this decade-spanning tale of small-town murder and crime, you need this space to breathe. Each of our heroes dipping in and out in the history of this place, not only gives us a better understanding of the crime at hand. But also a case studies into small-town life. How even small events can interconnect and spiral out of control or lead to bitter feuds that can span a person's whole life. By the time I had come to the end of my time with this book, I felt like I really knew these people. They were now friends and family. And for better or worse they had become a part of my life for those few days I spent with them. It is a testament to Dicker that he can create such three-dimensional characters. In my head, I can see how they look, hear their distinctive accents, and get a sense of how they would react to any given situation. They step off the page and welcome us into the world, we are left to look over the shoulders as much like us they dig deeper into the town's not-so-beautiful history.

     With so much to take in, you may be wondering if at times this book would be prone to confusion and a muddying of the mind. And I must confess that it was also a concern of mine as I made my way through the first few chapters daunted by what was still to come. But once again I feel that in having taken a great deal of time and care with each step of this book it worked out well. Because we are never hurried we can take a breath and place each part of the puzzle in its rightful place. It is what makes it at times feel more like a work of true crime and less a work of fiction. We are given context for how such events could arise and just why some people may have more negative feelings towards some of our players. This in turn opens up the possible pool of suspects to a great number of the town inhabitants. Now it has become not so easy to play beat the detective, our author manages to keep us on hooks thought most of the book only picking the most optimal moment to reveal key pieces. And with so many threads to keep an eye on one must be on the guard for this read. 

     This was a book that whilst it took me a bit longer than I thought to get into. Once I was there though I could not bear to put it down.  With its complex narrative and splattering of good old-fashioned cliches, this author has built a hybrid work of crime fiction. A little bit here and there to lure in most fans of crime fiction no matter your choice subset within this genre.