In this propulsive, page-turning thriller, the dark secrets of a small town in Tasmania are unraveled as a well-known figure goes missing without a trace-perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant and Ruth Ware.
Vanishing Falls, deep in the Tasmanian rainforest, is a remote small town with a storied past. The town's showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its calendar house-an eccentric, lavish mansion. These days, the house is occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner, and his wife, Celia...or at least, it was. For the pretty, popular, and kind Celia has suddenly disappeared.
Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she's stupid. It's true that Joelle's brain works a little differently-a legacy of shocking childhood trauma. But Joelle sees far more than most people realize, and remembers details that others cast away. For instance, she knows that Celia's husband, Jack, has connections to unsavory local characters whom he's desperate to keep hidden. He's not the only one in town with something to conceal. Even Joelle's own husband, Brian, a butcher, is acting suspiciously. While the police flounder, unable to find Celia's body, Joelle is gradually parsing the truth from the gossip she hears and from the simple gestures and statements that can unwittingly reveal so much. Just as the water from the falls disappears into the ground, gushing away through subterranean creeks, the secrets in Vanishing Falls are pulsing through the town, about to converge. And when they do, Joelle must summon the courage to reveal what really happened to Celia, even if it means exposing her own past.
With one of the most memorable heroines in fiction, Vanishing Falls captivates from its first page to the shocking, electrifying ending.
