by Jacqueline Bublitz
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2024
Publisher’s blurb
The acclaimed author of Before You Knew My Name returns with another taut suspense thriller overlaid with a moving exploration of the ways in which violent crime ricochets through the lives of those left behind.
You can run from your past, but not from the girls left behind.
Nineteen years ago, Ruth-Ann Baker’s childhood friend was murdered by convicted killer Ethan Oswald. Haunted by what happened, Ruth has long been convinced Oswald had other victims. But no one has ever believed her.
After dropping out of college and failing to prove her serial killer theory, Ruth is bartending when she hears that another young girl has gone missing from her home town. With Oswald now deceased, she begins to suspect he had an accomplice. A partner in crime who is still active today.
Crossing the globe from New York to New Zealand, Ruth unlocks parts of herself that she hasn’t dared to revisit, bringing her perilously close to three different women. The deeper she delves, the more she can’t shake the feeling that one of them knows the truth. About her childhood friend. About the missing girl. And, perhaps most dangerously of all, about Ruth herself …
Review
by Carol Woeltjes
Leave the Girls Behind explores the long-term impact of violence on all those involved, and in doing so forces the reader to think about who we label a victim and what we mean to convey when we use the term.
From the outside Ruth, our protagonist, would seem an average 20 something, but peer a little closer and the tension becomes evident. We meet Ruth as she learns about the suspected abduction of a seven-year-old girl from her hometown, then we watch as she tries to limit her exposure to information about the case until she feels it’s safe to look.
Ruth seems haunted by her past and her present, so much so I began to think she was an unreliable narrator. So much of the past is missing from her memory and much of the present is coloured by this loss, leading me to wonder what traumas lay within the void.
Slowly things become clearer. We learn that Ruth’s childhood friend was abducted and murdered in similar circumstances to the new missing girl and that ever since, this act of violence has driven not just Ruth’s actions, but those of the adults who care for her.
Convinced there is a link between past and present abductions, Ruth sets out to fill the gaps in her memory and to save the missing child.
The intertwining narratives, past and present, had me questioning not only the long-term impact caused by those who mean us harm, but also those who wish to protect. Violence against women and girls is ever present in our society, it is glamourised and frequently monetised, but at what and whose expense?
Jacqueline Bublitz skilfully guides the reader in examining their feelings for not only those traditionally thought of as victims, but for those on the periphery, the loved ones of the perpetrators. I found myself looking at the assumptions I’d made and seeing how these contribute to the ripple effect of the violence.
I was deeply affected by Ruth and many of the other characters, I felt a desire to protect while slowly been made aware of the long-term impacts of this protection and I saw how it is often a near stranger who sees through the brokenness and finds the whole.
There were echoes of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and the shadow of the recent Maxwell/Epstein trial within these pages. This thought-provoking and compassionate book deserves to be read and talked about. It may just contribute to how we as a society discuss and treat those people whose lives are impacted by the violence of men.