#BookReview ‘The Disappearance Of Stephanie Mailer’ by Joel Dicker trans Howard Curtis

About the book…

A twisting new thriller from the author of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair

In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of two brutal murders.

Confounding their superiors, two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and arrest the murderer, earning themselves handsome promotions and the lasting respect of their colleagues.

But twenty years later, 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. Before she can give any more details however, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears without trace, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the awful possibility that her suspicions might have been proved horribly true.

What happened to Stephanie Mailer?

What did she know?

And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?

Huge thanks to Milly Reid for the blog tour invite and my gifted e-arc of ‘‘The Disappearance Of Stephanie Mailer’ by Joel Dicker which is published by MacLeHose Press on 4th March.

I was a big fan of Joel’s earlier novel, ‘The Truth About The Harry Querbert Affair’ and was looking forward to what he followed it up with and this did not disappoint.

There are multiple timelines and narratives running through this substantial story, spanning 2 decades and several protagonists.

The main narrators are Jesse Rosenberg(the ‘one week away from retirement police captain), Betsy Kanner, second deputy in command of Orphea and Derek Scott, Jesse’s original police force partner.

Jesse’s 100% success rate in convictions is unparalleled, until his retirement party throws up an inconsistency in the shape of a journalist.

Stephanie Mailer throws enough seeds of doubt over the very first case which Jesse and Derek solved, a quadruple murder in 1994.

And then she vanishes…

As Jesse’s personal and professional lives are intertwined, his whole career has been based on this one conviction, this solving of what is locally known as ‘The Dark Night’ and so he cannot hang up his badge until he has thoroughly investigated not only the smoking gun which Stephanie claims to have found, but her disappearance as well.

Betsy makes a neat counterpoint to Stephanie-Stephanie is a woman about whom the entire book is both named and centered upon, but about whom we know very little. She is pieced together, third hand,by witness statements, her own writing and circumstance,her presence is almost ghostly. Betsy, however, is a known quantity, she is a woman in a man’s world, trying to establish herself as someone to be reckoned with despite the local police having no time or interest in welcoming her to the team. The systemic bullying she faces on a daily basis has her lined up with Jesse, trying to do the right thing by both the missing and the dead, her entrance and Jesse’s exit will be remembered by history as a great triumph, or, as abject failure.

As the investigation proceeds down a two pronged approach, into Stephanie’s whereabouts and the mayor’s family(plus accidental witness Megan) murders, the sense of place and time increases to a fever pitch of local concern over the annual theatre festival.

For a small town dependant on the tourist dollar, Orphea needs this to be solved and solved fast.

It is here that the narrative takes a darker turn as the needs of the many-the local elite-outweigh the obligations of the few-Jesse,Betsy and Derek.

It is reminiscent of Amity’s mayor in Jaws, where they try and hide the fact that there is a killer shark waiting in the wings, for the benefit of the town’s annual summer break. Here, the cultural and social impact of the theatre festival has lingered over the town, both reliant on it and scared of it due to superstitions surrounding the Orphea festival genesis.

The pace is frenetic yet steady, the revelations coming thick and fast whilst some extremely detailed character and world building is constructed.

What I loved is how involving this book is, it doesn’t give up its secrets easily, it makes the reader work at it, just like its predecessor.

The quality of the translation is high, the different narrators seem interchangeable to start with but about a third of the way in, their voices became substantial and more clear to follow. Joel certainly has a lot to say on the nature of writing, who ideas belong to and culpability for honesty in the telling of a tale.

He juggles the re-opened investigation into a seemingly solved quadruple murder , the social structure of a small town (including long held prejudices and tall tales) and the responsibility of the structures of law and information gathering with aplomb. This could have felt overlong and unwieldly in another writer’s hands, however, it is a book which pulls you, engrosses you and asks, just how did Stephanie Mailer disappear?

About the author…

Joël Dicker was born in 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland, where he studied law. He spent childhood summers in New England, particularly in Stonington and Bar Harbor, Maine.

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair won three French literary prizes, including the Grand Prix du Roman from the Académie Française, and was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt. Dicker lives in Geneva.

Links-http://joeldicker.com/

Twitter @QuercusBooks @MacLehosePress