Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is published by in hardback Weidenfeld & Nicolson, priced £12.99. Available now.

Gillian Flynn has already impressed Stephen King with her first two thrillers, and he's bound to rave about her third, as chilling as it is clever.

The premise is simple enough - beautiful bubbly blonde Amy Dunne goes missing on the morning of her and husband Nick's fifth anniversary.

For the first half of the novel, the narrative is split between Nick, voicing his reactions and the unfolding crime investigation from the day of Amy's disappearance, and Amy's diary entries about their relationship, leading up to her disappearance.

So far, so predictable, until the police discover the crime scene has been staged and question Nick, who's also having an affair with one of his students, over the murder of his wife.

But then everything flips and what the reader believed was true about this couple and Amy's disappearance is ripped up and replaced with a much darker scenario.

Flynn is a master of character creation - and reader manipulation - and this book, even with the slight loss of pace towards the end, will have you gripped throughout.

8/10
(Review by Kate Whiting)