#TheGirlsLeftBehind by Emily Gunnis (2023)
Publication Date: 9 November 2023
Page Count: 366
Rating: 🏍️🏍️🏍️🏍️
My thanks to Headline Review for an eARC and to Headline Audio for a review copy of the unabridged audiobook edition, both via NetGalley, of ‘The Girls Left Behind’ by Emily Gunnis. The audiobook was narrated by Clare Corbett. I was also invited to take part in their publication week blog tour. This is my stop.
This work of crime fiction has quite a complex plot that enfolds between four timelines! In 2015, the novel’s present, Superintendent Jo Hamilton is due to retire from the Sussex Police. When the remains of a young woman are discovered in the woods close to Saltdean, she reflects on her early career as a constable when she had often been called out to deal with runaways from Morgate House, a local children’s home located on the Saltdean cliffs.
In 1975, Jo had attended a domestic incident that ended in tragedy. Sisters Holly and Daisy Moore were orphaned and housed at Morgate House. In 1985, Holly has become a troubled teenager desperate for love. When she meets a man who promises to take care of her, Holly hopes her luck has finally changed. Then she is reported missing and was never found.
In 2015 as the clock ticks down to her retirement, Jo recalls an incident when another female resident of Morgate had fallen from the cliffs. Jo has long been convinced the couple who had run the home before its closure were hiding something. She decides to track down Daisy and seek to re-open the case. The fourth timeline is set in 1944 as Jo’s mother, Olive, becomes part of the dispatch team at Bletchley Park.
While the chapters are clearly marked with the date and viewpoint character, this constant hopping about in time meant that close attention was needed to avoid confusion. There were also a few minor anachronisms with respect to period details, that proved slightly distracting.
In her Author’s Note Emily Gunnis shares that she drew on her mother-in-law’s experiences as a Sussex Police constable during the 1970-80s to highlight difficulties faced by women serving in the police as well as the inadequacies of social services, especially when dealing with vulnerable teenagers, who often fell between the cracks.
She also sought to highlight the roles of women who served as motorcycle dispatch riders at Bletchley Park. There are also explorations of the often fraught relations between mothers and daughters.
With respect to the audiobook, Clare Corbett is a highly experienced narrator with an impressive 350 titles to her CV. She is a very versatile reader and was able to confidently voice the novel’s many characters whose ages ranged from children to the elderly.
Overall, I found ‘The Girls Left Behind’ an engaging police procedural. However, while I appreciated that the author had wanted to focus on various historical social issues and character development, I felt that this resulted in rather a lot going on in its pages despite the modest length.
Having said that, I expect that it would prove a suitable choice for reading groups that are seeking a work of crime fiction that goes further than the search for whodunnit.