The author brings to light how women are being let down by the system that is supposed to protect them. When you think of Ireland, you think of lovely, verdant hillsides and sheep gamboling through the meadows. It doesn’t seem the type of place that would. blame dead women for their circumstance rather than pursue the perpetrator. This is a very interesting read. How sad that the system places so little value on women .

The island of Ireland is known for many things, both good and bad. From its lush green hills and beautiful coastline to its fame as the home of Guinness. It is also an island split in two, with both historic and religious problems causing the period known as 'the troubles' to anyone reporting on current affairs during the 1990s.

What it wasn't known for was its unusually high number of killings not related to political unrest which were swept under the carpet, kept hidden, for reasons which now seem ludicrous. These victims were all women who, in some way, were perceived to have deserved what happened to them! They were unmarried mothers, divorced, or 'living in sin', their descriptions as outdated as the cultures which left their parents, children, partners and siblings desperate for information which was never forthcoming.

Claire McGowan is a crime author, something she unfortunately felt the need to mention a little too often! This is her first foray into true crime and in some ways it shows. I did find the historic references interesting as, albeit from the other side of the Irish Sea, the troubles were a constant part of our everyday lives through the news headlines of the day. She does show a compassion for those left to pick up the pieces and a definite desire to help if she can.

There are, unfortunately, no first-hand accounts or photos to help give an idea of where these crimes took place. Although the history of both Northern and Southern Ireland should be fresh in the minds of those living there that isn't the case for the rest of the world and it is hard to picture the desolation or inaccessibility in some parts of what we are constantly reminded is a relatively small island.

I was as surprised as the author about the lack of information available at the time about these missing women and the apparent lack of determination by those in law enforcement to discover the culprit or culprits. Her narrative does at least give these victims and their families a platform which they don't seem to have had before but for a newly released book there seems to be no new information included from after 2020.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the opinions expressed are my own. I found this informative but needing more detail on locations, victims, and those searching for answers.

I am finding it difficult to give feedback on this as I didn't realise it was factual. It is well written if a little repetitive but the writer is good at giving insight into the imagined feelings of the victims. The lower star rating is only because it didn't appeal to me personally.

Claire McGowan is such a talented writer. She Is an author I love to spend my money money so scoring this book for free was like Christmas!
This was such an interesting book, that really made you feel very emotion.

Definitely will be buying this on Audible for a re-read/listen

I did not really read the blurb of this book when it was offered to me from net galley as an ARC. I really didn’t request this book, it was given or offered to me by the author because I had bought a book of her’s. So my review will be short. It went on and on about missing woman in a certain period of time, in Ireland in the 1990’s and I understand the author is from Ireland but it truly became so tedious to read and repetitious. I truly thought I was offered a new fiction book of hers. Thank you net galley for this ARC but it was truly not what I expected but I have only myself to blame. Others might find this interesting. For me it just when on and on.

Heartbreaking non-fiction account of a bunch of unsolved murders of women in Ireland in the late 1990s through early 2000s. McGowan looks at the crimes individually and also tries to find patterns. She also speculated about how societal forces in Ireland at the time may have meant that some of the crimes were not investigated as rigorously as they should have been.

If you're looking for a happy ending, this isn't the book isn't for you. It's a start. Now true crime podcasters need to get on the case and demand justice for these women and their loved ones.

While I found the information shocking and informative the format was lacking. I felt like I was being taken around in circles and forced myself to finish reading rather than jump off.

Admittedly this is not typically the type of book I read. But I do love true crime stories; maybe this one was just not focused enough for me.

I am fan of this author, and have enjoyed several of her fictional thrillers. This was a different type of book being true crime non-fiction. The author talks about many, many murders of young women in Ireland, her birth country, and the surrounding economical, political, scientific contexts of the murders over time. It felt a bit disjointed and too stream of conscious for me, there were so many names, stories, and details to try to keep up with. I found it a bit drawn out, I do think it is valuable to have all these missing women named and remembered. If you are interested in true crime in Ireland, this book is for you!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In the 1990's, Ireland seemed a safe place for women. It was easy to ignore non-political murders and sexual violence. Claire McGowan delivers a candid investigation into the culture of secrecy, victim-blaming and shame. McGowan reveals an Ireland of outdated social and sexual mores, perceived propriety and misguided politics. Was an unknown serial killer at large or was there something even more insidious at work? Eight women went missing from an area roughly 80 miles around Dublin. This is a fascinating read and well-researched by McGowan. I enjoyed this book as it was very passionate to McGowan to write. I would like to thank NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK Little A for a copy for an honest review.

It is an eye opening look at the large number of unpublished cases in the 1990s of missing women in a very small area of what is presumed to be the picture perfect, safe country of Ireland. Were these disappearances overshadowed by “The Troubles”? Was it perhaps a lack of concern for these women’s whereabouts because the perception was that the young women either ran away, committed suicide or somehow deserved what had happened? Did the lack of resources, competence and communication between a divided Ireland and blurred borders cause these cases to be ignored or investigated too late? Witnesses in these disappearances were few. Today’s ability to test DNA is a possible means to identify the killer or killers, however the majority of bodies of the missing women who are presumed dead, have never been found. This is a well written albeit uncomfortable read with no clear answers.

True Crime isn't a genre I've read since the old days when, pre-internet, you couldn't get instantaneous news online. This caught my eye since I'd read and enjoyed the author previously.
As an American I've always dreamed of visiting Ireland, this is a side not highlighted on travel sites.
The disappearances, deaths or murders of women in a specific area from 1993 to 1998 is researched and theories discussed by the author.
The politics, border issues between Northern and South Ireland, the Catholic church, and the police response is addressed. It was both enlightening and terrifyingly disturbing.
There are many facts, theories and possibilities, but no happy ending to this story. I was again reminded how women are ignored, abused and discounted all over the world. Knowledge is power and hopefully this story will continue to bring change.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance digital copy of "The Vanishing Triangle" by Claire McGowan and to Little A publishing. These are my honest personal opinions given voluntarily.

I have loved all of Claire McGowan’s fictional books which meant that I was super keen to read this true crime investigation.
I met my husband in a rural pub in Ireland and fortunately I couldn’t relate to many of the cases in this book!
It’s an informative, shocking and emotional read. I finished it a couple of days ago but keep thinking about the cases.
I really enjoyed this book. It’s not a genre that I would normally pick but I’d definitely recommend it.

Thank you to Netgalley for affording me the privilege of reading this book by Claire McGowan.

To me there's a fine line between fiction and nonfiction when it comes to murder.  An author researches in depth giving the reader a lot of detail but usually with a successful outcome. 

However I'm not a reader of true crime, preferring to leave some of the reality behind and walk into the world of make believe. 

So picking up the varnishing triangle and after reading the prologue I was shocked to learn of the number of females who had gone missing in Ireland.  The prologue alone was sadly gripping.  

Myself, as a girl growing up in England during this era I had no idea of the events unfolding across the water at our neighbours.  We only heard about the troubles occurring in Northern Ireland. It may be that these disappearances and murders were actually broadcast in the British media but I was a schoolgirl so I probably wasn't paying much attention to the news in those days.

Growing up in 70s England we felt safe, we gave people who pulled up in cars, directions, got into friends parents cars without a second thought went out alone and thought nothing of walking home from school or shops at night via the alleyways and side streets.  I knew my home turf well so I never considered it being anything other than safe. Mobile phones didn't exist so some of the time our parents had no idea where we were. We came home when we knew it was tea time.

When I started working in the 80s I had to walk home not being able to drive.  I remember hearing that the Yorkshire ripper was at large and even though I wasn't in Yorkshire or the from the profession he targeted I vividly remember it still put me on high alert. 

I still struggle with real crime stories because stories are meant to be fiction aren't they!  The vanishing triangle feels like a book of fiction, like it's all made up,  it's really quite scary to think this actually happened and fiction is exactly what it isn't.  

Claire writes with passion and you move through the chapters with speed, with every turn it seems more and more unreal that it really is real. The attention to detail from Claire's research is mind blowing, getting your brain around the fact that there were so few clues and that no one seem to find a pattern. That the rest of the world did not know about this and the lack of importance of information out there that all females needed to be vigilant. It's has mind blowing as it is disbelieving. Thank you Claire for giving these women recognition and for bringing to our attention the horrifying events that occurred.

A digital ARC of this book was provided to me by NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK, and Little A. The opinions are my own and freely given.

I appreciate the research and time this book took to write but I wasn't really a fan. I thought it jumped timelines too much. I understand the author was trying to point out the danger of being a woman in Ireland in the 90s however, there were too many victims' names thrown about. By the time I would get to the next chapter and the victims were mentioned again, I couldn't remember the specifics of her disappearance. Then there were men that were found guilty or suspected and they too got mixed up in my mind. I couldn't remember who was convicted for what crime and when it was mentioned I couldn't remember those specifics either.

The author seemed to downgrade the country so much it makes me never want to go there.

I found it boring and couldn't wait to finish it, knowing there was no real ending since no one has been convicted. There are suspects but no proof. No one knows if it was the work of a serial killer, or multiple people. And no one knows if these cases were at all related.

There was no demographic of how big the triangle is. Not being from Ireland, I had no frame of reference, and I couldn't tell if it was a mile or several hundred.

Only 6 women's cases were investigated. Operation Trace was told to focus on these 6 only and no one else. I expected this book to be more about the victims then the politics and religious views of the country.

The author talked about The Troubles, but again not being from Ireland, I don't know what that is, and it was not explained.

This book really sheds light on how the police victimized the missing women. Assuming because they showed signs of depression, they must have committed suicide, they may have been considered sex workers, so their disappearance was their fault, or they were young and just ran away.

Again, there was so much research that went into this book, and this being the authors first true crime novel she did a solid job, it was just too confusing for me.

Being a fan of Claire McGowan, I went right in when I saw a new book was being published. Only after did I realize that it was a true crime instead of a novel. I dove right in anyway.

The author is giving us an overview of woman disappearing during the nineties, all relatively in the same area. She doesn't limit the investigation to the official eight who disappeared, but she has broadened her inquiry to almost the whole of Ireland. From the beginning she clearly states that she wanted to know more about these older cases and try to find out what had caused so many to disappear with so little publicity. This gives another approach to the whole book, focusing more on background than on facts and figures about the cases themselves. Which is logical as there are very little facts to go on. With the lack of technology from that era, the women almost literary vanished without a trace.

So instead we get a very good insight in what life was in the nineties in Ireland, and how women were considered almost second hand citizens by the church, the police, politicians, by society in general and by men who felt empowered to take whatever they wanted without having to take any responsibility. To make things worse, all this happened during the Troubles, the time that Ireland was plagued by terrorist attacks, and very little attention or time and resources were available for solving any other crimes.

So, this book is not for you if you want a factual account in a clear timeline of all the victims, but it is recommendable if you are interested in the societal upheaval during this decade and the role of women in general, and the paradigm shift that happened afterwards. I can imagine that this book is very personal to the author, as she has also weaved a lot of her own impressions throughout, growing up in the area in that timeframe. I also think that she is hoping that this book might bring up the cases up again, as an extra stepping stone in making sure their lives will not be forgotten.

A sincere thanks to NetGalley, Little A and the author for an advanced copy in exchange of an honest review.

The book by ClaireMcGowan is actually a true crime story. The book covers a series of murders committed in Ireland in the vanishing triangle. A geographical area of concern.
Ms McGowan has certainly done her research into these crimes. I had certainly never heard of the murders before.
A solid read but i prefer Claires other books.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to see an ARC

Read through netgalley- this was a really interesting and difficult read focusing on unsolved murders/ missing person cases in Ireland. I thought that the author bought together well the political climate and difficulties well and overall the tone was sympathetic and well researched. Very different to her fiction books which I also love. Bit heavy subject matter so slow read but an interesting one.

I didn't realise this was a non-fiction book, I just went for it because I generally enjoy Claire McGowan's books. I didn't really enjoy this one though. Whilst the subject was very interesting, and I was reminded of just how archaic Ireland is in the way people, particularly women are treated and expected to live, I found the book too repetitive and nothing really came out of the author's 'investigations'.

I have read a few of Claire McGowan's books before and enjoyed them so I was looking forward to reading this 'true crime investigation' by her. After the first couple of chapters, however, it was clear that this book wasn't up to the high standards of her fiction work.

'The Vanishing Triangle' tells the story of a number of women who disappeared in Ireland in the 1990s, close to where the author grew up. The subject matter is fascinating and I hadn't heard of these disappearances and murders before, so I did enjoy learning about them. However, the writing jumped about all over the place from one missing woman to another, then mentioning other vaguely similar crimes. I found it quite hard to follow and parts of it were incredibly repetitive. The book felt more like a jumble of thoughts than a properly crafted project and mainly focused on the author's opinion of what happened to the women as the cases are largely unsolved.

Overall, I wanted to love this as I do rate the author and the subject matter was interesting; as a book it had so much potential but I feel that it was let down with the poorly organised and executed writing. The only saving grace was that it was fairly short.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for sending me this ARC in return for an honest review.

This book is really good. At first I thought it was just a novel I was soon hooked on the story and how difficult it was to unravel the past in the search for justice.