Written by one of the best living crime writers working today, Dervla McTiernan’s new thriller is an edge-of-seat murder mystery set in a fictional small town in Vermont, USA.
What Happened to Nina? is not a whodunit in the traditional sense. The reader knows where, why, how, and who within the first few chapters. But to every character in the story, except the killer and their accomplice, this story is about a missing person … until it’s not.
Nina and Simon have been dating each other exclusively since middle school. Although they were determined to beat the odds and stay together even after they left town for different colleges, they’ve been drifting apart. Nina has been drifting more than Simon, truth be told, and it likely has something to do with all the bruises she won’t explain to her friends.
Back in town on their spring break, they decide to spend a final weekend at Stowe House, Simon’s parents’ lake house less than an hours drive from town, to do some hiking and climbing. Video surveillance shows them arriving at the house on Friday. It shows them entering the house and, after a while, it shows the two of them in their hiking gear with climbing rope heading toward the rocky terrain where the cameras can’t follow.
The prologue has told the reader what transpired between them out there on the rocks — but Simon’s father Rory can’t see it on the surveillance video he’s been viewing. What he can see when they re-enter the camera’s scope is Nina, limping and looking the worse for wear, leaning heavily against Simon.
The two enter the house again and there is no further movement on camera until the early hours of the following morning, when Rory sees Simon leaving Stowe House alone, and driving away. Rory never sees Nina leave the house. Regardless how often he reruns the video, he never sees Nina again. So with sinking heart, he dresses in black and takes a surreptitious midnight trip to Stowe House, determined to find out what happened to Nina. And find out he does. And yet, even after he has witnessed what his son Simon has done, Rory chooses to cover up the evidence himself. And then he goes on to deny, deny, deny.
I had an image in my mind of the lake as I had first seen it, shimmering blue under a sun-soaked sky. I imagined children playing on the shoreline. Simon’s children. Our grandchildren. I heard their laughter. And then in the background I saw Nina’s body floating to the surface in pieces. And bobbing there in the water, horrors waiting to be discovered. The house that Jamie had fallen in love with looked like a house of horrors to me now, lying low and dark under the moonlight. We’d never be able to sell the place. We’d be stuck with it for the rest of our lives. My hands were shaking so much I could barely drive. All I could think about as I drove away was Nina’s face. I pulled off to the side, opened the door, and dry retched. I knew my son. I knew him. He was not a murderer.’ Chapter 13: Rory
When Nina fails to return home from Stowe with Simon, her parents, Leanne and Andy Fraser, begin a frantic missing person search for their daughter. Meeting dead ends and denials everywhere they turn, most vehemently from Simon’s mother, they consult police. Detective Matthew Wright takes the lead on the case, with newbie detective Sarah Jane Reed as his second in command. They learn that the last time Nina has been heard from by friends, or used her phone or her credit cards, or participated on her socials was Thursday evening. After Thursday, she became a ghost.
As the case of the missing student runs its course over the next few weeks, the internet goes mad. Simon is their most likely suspect of wrong-doing, as Nina’s boyfriend, and as the last known person to have seen her alive. Online reaction is overwhelmingly supportive of Nina’s family.
The elite social media team consulted by Rory tells him that Nina plays well to the public, so their goal must be to shift public opinion against her to take the heat off Simon, who is looking more guilty by the minute as support for Nina rises.
Rory’s team immediately launches a no-holds-barred crusade against Nina and her family, attacking their credibility in every way possible. Their destructive campaign turns public opinion against Nina’s parents in no time, culminating in accusations that Andy is a pedophile. At first they think they can weather the storm. After all, it’s just a few disenfranchised people on the internet. But within days, the virtual rumour mill begins to destroy them. Andy loses work to those who believe the pedophile rumours, and Leanne has closed her Inn, taking to her bed in depression. Eventually, they lose hope that their child will ever be returned to them. So finally, with nothing left to lose, Andy Fraser takes action.
This story is less about whodunit than it is about how wealth extends privilege to those who have it to protect their own from paying for their crimes. It’s about a legal system in which those without the privilege of wealth and status might never find justice for the loss of a child to violence. And ultimately, it’s about those times in life when only an eye for an eye, or a child for a child, will do.
Prolific McTiernan is best known for her brilliant police procedural The Cormac Reilly Series, a small-town noir series set in the ‘dark heart of Ireland, where corruption, desperation, and crime run rife.’ I’ve loved her writing ever since I was blown away by The Ruin, impeccably narrated by Aoife McMahon. It was unlike anything I’d read before, and absolutely riveting. I’ve read all her books since then. Three of the four of her post-Cormac stand-alones are set in the USA, except for The Fireground, an electrifying thriller set in Australia’s bushland.
McTiernan’s writing is accomplished, the story is inspired, and the production value by HarperCollins is first-rate. The seven narrators are well-matched in style and voice, ensuring the story is told smoothly. I rate the audiobook 4 out of 5.
What Happened to Nina?
Written by Dervla McTiernan
Narrated by: Kristen Sieh, Stacey Glemboski, Lisa Flanagan, Robert Petkoff, George Newbern, Jenna Lamia, Preston Butler III
Published 2024 HarperCollins Publishers
© 2024 L.D'anna
My Ears are My Eyes 