Pubblicato in Italia in giugno con il titolo La Ragazza del Passato. Dopo che sua figlia Julie sparì misteriosamente durante la notte, la vita di Anna negli ultimi otto anni è stata un incubo, finché Julie riappare improvvisamente sulla porta di casa. E quando Anna comincia a sospettare che la ragazza che ora vive sotto il suo tetto non sia veramente sua figlia, l’incubo ricomincia.
Eight years after her thirteen-year-old daughter Julie suddenly disappeared in the middle of the night, Anna’s life is still far from normal. One day someone knocks on her door and when she opens it, Julie is standing right in front of her. Anna’s joy at finding her own daughter is short lived when a private detective, Alex Marcado, casts doubts on Julie’s identity and her story of the past eight years. And as Julie’s behavior seems more and more suspicious, Anna starts to investigate on her own.
The story is told from two different points of views. Through Anna’s point of view, the author portrays and perfectly describes a mother’s feelings at having her daughter back and her distress as she starts to investigate her. Julie’s point of view is told backward (and at times confusingly), from the present going back until the night she disappeared as the reader starts to wonder who she really is and finds out what really happened to her.
Through Anna’s eyes, the reader also explores how Julie’s disappearance affected the rest of the family: Anna and her husband, Tom, grew apart as they dealt with their feelings separately while their younger daughter, Jane, spent the last eight years feeling guilty about the night of the disappearance.
I loved how the author alternates the narration between the present and the past and, as Julie’s story slowly unravels, the suspense and anticipation grows making the novel more dramatic and dark.
Anna and Julie are portrayed as two strong and determined women and, although Julie’s disappearance and the mystery behind it are central to the story, what really kept me reading is the psychology behind these two characters: a mother’s grief, a girl’s survival, the strong bond between a mother and a daughter are the focus of the novel.
A gripping and compulsive thriller, Good As Gone is full of twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end.
