Ireland in the 1990s seemed a safe place for women. With the news dominated by the Troubles, it was easy to ignore non-political murders and sexual violence, to trust that you weren't going to be dragged into the shadows and killed. But beneath the surface, a far darker reality had taken hold.
Through questioning the society and circumstances that allowed eight young women to vanish without a trace―no conclusion or conviction, no resolution for their loved ones―bestselling crime novelist Claire McGowan delivers a candid investigation into the culture of secrecy, victim-blaming and shame that left these women's bodies unfound, their fates unknown, their assailants unpunished.
McGowan reveals an Ireland not of leprechauns and craic but of outdated social and sexual mores, where women and their bodies were of secondary importance to perceived propriety and misguided politics-a place of well-buttoned lips and stony silence, inadequate police and paramilitary threat.
Was an unknown serial killer at large or was there something even more insidious at work? In this insightful, sensitively drawn account, McGowan exposes a system that failed these eight women-and continues to fail women to this day.
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(Little A, 1 May 2022, 186 pages, bought from @AmazonKindle, #AmazonFirstReads)
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I've read other books by the author and this true crime tale of her home country intrigued me. There is so much packed into this book's scant pages it felt like I was reading something much longer. The book focuses on multiple women who have vanished without a trace in Ireland from the 90's until now. I enjoyed the way the author discusses thee in connection with Ireland's troubled past. The cases didn't shock me as much as the way the Gardai dealt or didn't deal with the cases at the time. There is some tough moments in the book around Ireland being dominated by the Church and misogynistic culture. This book floored me.
