(AUDIO) BOOK REVIEW
Dead Girls And A Journalist
Book review of Last Girl Gone by J.G. Hetherton
I’ve been doing these book reviews for quite some time now, starting back when I still listened to books on YouTube.
During that time, I listened to three books dealing with missing people, mostly girls or young women. These kinds of books draw me, which is why when I saw the title Last Girl Gone, I knew I would listen to it.
What is it about missing people that fascinates me so much? This is something I asked myself, and it instantly reminded me of the time when my children were small, and I was a single parent, always keeping an eye on them, deadly afraid someone might ‘steal’ them from me.
Maybe that’s where the fascination comes from — that I can’t understand how children can disappear, and then again, I can because if someone wants to abduct a child, they will.
The author, J.G. Hetherton
Raised in rural Wisconsin, the author graduated from Northwestern University, then moved to Chicago, where he lived for almost a decade. He dabbled in different jobs while working on his first novel and then moved to North Carolina for love.
They now live in Durham with their twin daughters. When J.G. Hetherton is not writing, you can find him on a hiking trail or reading. His favorite authors are Tami Hoag and Linwood Barclay.
J.G. Hetherton created Laura Chambers and wrote two books in the series — Last Girl Gone (2018) and What Lies Beneath (2019). The Sun-Sentinel named Last Girl Gone one of their top debut mystery picks in 2018.
Just like with some other up-and-coming authors, I couldn’t find any titles after the last date, which always makes me wonder if it is about the influence Covid-19 had on all our lives.
Laura Chambers, an investigative journalist
She has said she would never return to Hillsborough, the town where she was born, but Laura Chambers returns after the Boston Globe has told her they no longer want her. It makes her feel like a failure, working for the local paper, but she loves her profession so much, she decides to make the best of it.
Then a girl who has been missing for a long time is discovered to be dead.
Laura’s job goes from boring to interesting in no time.
The dead body of the girl has been cleaned meticulously, and the way she is dressed conveys pure innocence.
Patty Finch — not the dead girl — has disappeared 10 years before, and the people of Hillsborough see that as the beginning, and something they collectively want to forget. But now the terror starts again, as another girl disappears. And another.
It seems the deeper Laura dives into the case — she hopes this will put her career back on the rails and sees it as her last chance to get back on the front page — the colder it seems to get.
But, Laura is nothing if not persistent. Bit by bit she follows the clues, while also seeing a therapist to work through childhood issues with her mother, and what has happened in Boston and ruined her career.
Bit by bit, Laura moves closer to the truth, closer to finding what has happened to the missing girls. Is she prepared for what she will find in the end? Can she get to the bottom of it, or is this thing just too big for her?
Not a highflyer — the story or the narration?
Where I was intrigued by the story, and liked the flawed character of Laura — the main character should definitely not be perfect — I almost stopped listening to the book.
The narrator had a breathy, husky voice, and left strange pauses while reading. I almost stopped listening, because of that, but pushed through because I wanted to know where the story goes. This has everything to do with the disappearance of Patty Finch, and wanting to know what has happened to her.
For some, it might be better to read the paper version of this book.
Sidenote: A narrator can ruin a book totally for me. During my YouTube listening period, I stopped listening to several books because the narrator irritated me. It has only happened once on Audible, and thankfully it was a book for which I haven’t used a credit!
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