The Vanishing Triangle is well written, accessible, and shows great care and respect for it's subject. The amount of research put into this book is impressive and maddening at the same time-the author provides all the ways that these victims were ignored and their cases mismanaged. It's a heartbreaking and powerful read that will stay with you.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions and mistakes are my own.

An interesting book looking at the tragedy of murders in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. I found it repetitive in places. It was okay but I think the true crime part and unsolved murders is not for me. Its good to keep the names alive as I don't remember these cases growing up in this era.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an arc in exchange for an honest opinion

Oh WOW! I requested this ARC based on the author, not realizing this was actually true crime. The story details eight women who went missing in the early 90's with little or no trace and their bodies were never found. There was very little investigation, considering that The Troubles, a low-level war/violent conflict, were also going on at that time and women seemed to be treated as second class citizens. There did seem to be several obvious suspects in a few cases that just went nowhere!? CRAZY! There was a lot of victim blaming and also not much technology. I found the lack of technology especially interesting, as we tend to forget that this was not all that long ago that we had no cellphones, social media and internet. was a new thing. This is a disturbing account of the goings-on told from the authors' perspective. I am an American and have always longed to visit Ireland someday. This was definitely a darker version than in my dreams. Sadly, I guess crime touches everywhere. It appears to be a well-researched endeavor and I hate to say I enjoyed it, considering the subject matter, but it definitely kept me reading. I do hope someday there is some closure at least for some of the victims.

Thank you to #NetGalley, Claire McGowan and Amazon Publishing UK for this ARC>

This is not my favorite book by this author, but it was definitely interesting. The true crime story of eight women who go missing in Ireland in the 90’s without anyone really trying to find out what happened to them is not just mysterious, but also outrageous. The author makes a point of the fact that Ireland was divided and that contributed to the issue of investigating these disappearances. There were a number of details about the young women that the author included and also a few extraneous details, like the scandal with President Clinton that happened at that time. I enjoyed reading the book but I cannot say I was engrossed in it. It was a dry and slow-paced book for me.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guidelines Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”

This is Claire McGowan’s detailed study of the mysterious disappearances of a number of women within a demarcated area (the ‘vanishing triangle’) in Ireland over a five-year period. It’s a disturbing tale of a country that didn’t seem to protect its womenfolk – or to care too much if they vanished off the face of the earth. The author grew up close by, and she adds context by telling us about her own experiences and observations at the time, making it all the more real. Chillingly, she doesn’t remember hearing about many of the cases. Where was the national outcry?
I enjoyed how McGowan brought in her experiences of novel writing, often alluding to how, if this were a fictional novel, she would leave no loose ends and there would be a definite perpetrator or perpetrators. Unfortunately, things don’t work out so neatly in real life.
Knowing she would not solve the mystery, McGowan set out to investigate how so many women could go missing without widespread protests. She examines why cases did not seem to be properly investigated, the seeming lack of urgency, why often the women themselves were blamed, and why, even more horrifically, some men known to be violent seemed to be sheltered, or to evade conviction because their cases were bungled.
She sets out the context for the disappearances, including the state of Ireland and the Catholic church, the lack of DNA testing and the issues of having two difference police forces.
The Vanishing Triangle is interesting, well-researched and well-written. My only slight criticism is that I did find it a little repetitive in places.

I was interested in this book as I know about the so-called ‘Vanishing Triangle’, having grown up inside it, close to Enniskerry (a place mentioned several times throughout). I had heard of several of the women, despite being a young teen when they went missing. I remember my parents talking about some of these cases. Some others I didn’t remember but when I mentioned the ‘missing women’ to my mother, she remembered them all, so it clearly made a big impact on her. The author seemed to imply nobody knew about these women being missing, which I found a little bizarre to be honest.

Overall, I found the book missed the mark a little for me. It felt a bit chaotic? Cases were mentioned several times here and there and the narrative didn’t really ‘flow.’ It felt a bit clunky and at times very repetitive - the author mentioned again and again about her age in relation to the missing woman she was writing about.

There is a wider topic of Ireland being a hostile place for women, which is undoubtedly true and has started to slowly improve from the 90s (which the author concedes). However I don’t believe this is unique to Ireland unfortunately so I’m not sure why this ‘angle’ was spoken about in every chapter.

On the plus side I got some more details about cases I didn’t know about and that made me go and do more reading around them.

Claire McGowan isn’t the first thriller writer to turn her attention to unsolved true crime cases. However, this isn’t a vanity project in which a successful thriller writer feels that they can solve old cases: this is something completely different. It is sheer anger at a huge travesty of justice against women that prompted Claire McGowan to write this book.

McGowan began looking into the stories of eight women in Northern Ireland who disappeared between 1993 and 1998, setting out to ask why these women’s disappearances were never solved by police. She was appalled to discover that there were far more women whose disappearances were unaccounted for than she initially thought. In fact, she writes:
‘There are too many missing women to list, not just the eight I originally began to look into’.
Shockingly, she discovered that ‘women are dying, and going missing, in disturbingly high numbers’.

In naming these women and the circumstances in which they disappeared, McGowan accords them the dignity of ‘keeping their names alive’. All these women matter, she is saying. It strikes her how quickly some women’s names disappear from public record: the women who appear on the lists of the murdered or missing are considered more important than other women because they are young, ‘decent’ and ‘respectable’.

After the Yorkshire Ripper case, it is well known that the police were less likely to devote time to investigating the deaths of prostitutes. In the misogynistic culture of Northern Ireland, the contempt for ‘unrespectable’ women and the reluctance to investigate their deaths was even more shocking: women who’d had sexual relationships outside marriage or who’d had abortions were considered to have ‘run off with a man’ or even to have committed suicide as a result of having had an abortion. Older women were discounted as potential victims of rape and murder. When links were investigated between cases, such women were not included, meaning that vital connections between cases could have been missed.

Numerous other reasons for this injustice against women are explored. McGowan asks why violent men who hurt women were protected and shielded by institutions, and, even when caught, were given ridiculously lenient sentences: a murderer was not convicted, for example, because the judge thought that he dressed well and spoke nicely.

Political turmoil also played a part in distracting police and politicians; the desire to promote Ireland as a safe and affluent place meant that unpleasant facts were suppressed; inadequate police training led to bungled investigations; the lack of safe transport options for women in rural areas meant that women were vulnerable to attack.

Interspersed with these shocking cases are McGowan’s memories of being a young girl in Ireland in the nineties. Despite living in an area in which so many women were going missing, there was a complete lack of awareness of the dangers threatening women in this apparently safe country. As someone who knows Ireland, McGowan is perfectly placed to investigate all the social and political issues surrounding the disappearance of these women. McGowan concludes that it is institutionalised misogyny that has denied the relatives and friends of these women the right to know what happened to the women they loved: ‘Ireland is still a country that reflects deep hatred and contempt towards women’.

This is a brave and unforgettable book that will rank alongside the film ‘Philomena’ in its revelations of the shocking truth about the way women are abused in Ireland.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This is very different to other books of Claire McGowan's that I have read. However, it was a really interesting read and helped me learn more about Ireland and the political and social upheaval it went through in the 1990's. The premise of the book is the disappearance and/or murder of so many young women and the fact that no one seemed to really care or want to make links between them to potentially explore the possibility of a serial killer being at large. I did feel like I needed a board to write down all the facts about each case so I could try to work out the connections as McGowan did as, at times, it was hard to keep track. I enjoyed the book immensely-it was a very different read.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Received an ARC via NetGalley.

It’s hard to give a rating for a book with such grim subject matter. It’s not like reading about a plethora of murdered women is really enjoyable. But it’s certainly interesting, in that grim sort of way; how does it happen, why does it happen, etc.

I liked how the author framed the story. She wasn’t going to solve it so she doesn’t go into the investigations or the forensics, so she placed the focus on why these cases get overlooked, why they to unsolved, why we place fault on women. It’s an interesting but depressing way to look at things.

I’m glad she’s given attention to women who have been overlooked. I do wish maybe she had organized the book differently. I felt like there’s a bit of retread bc focusing each chapter on themes. Maybe organizing by woman or by timeline might have made things more cohesive?

The background on Ireland covered stuff I hadn’t known before and I really enjoyed the picture she painted of the country and the time period.

Disturbing, Thought Provoking…
An area in Ireland where women went missing is explored in this factual account come true crime investigation. Along with the specific cases themselves, the society at large is considered and the opinions of the populous of the time. Thought provoking, disturbing and compulsive.

So I did not know what to expect with this book but I am in love. Thank you so much for the ARC. 4 stars. all the way. Thank you.

Having loved the author's previous book, I was excited to receive a widget for this one. What I expected would be a thriller fiction turned out to be a true-crime story with the author's insight and perception of the time period, the quality of life and the unsolved crimes during this period.

I was interested in the book to begin with as I have never read anything in the true-crime genre. However, I found it difficult to stay invested in it for long. This is not a reflection of the author's writing but on my own reading preferences.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Such an interesting read. So hard to imagine how this could happen and it makes you really feel for the families. Absolutely breaks your heart.

It isn't that I think serial killers can only be found in the United States. It's just that most of the stories I have been exposed to happened somewhere in this country. There is even an unsolved case here on Long Island, the Gilgo Beach Murders. That being said, I was very surprised to learn about these missing women in Ireland. I have always thought that small towns are more likely to be full of community spirit and caring for your neighbors. Another foolish fantasy, a leftover from my childhood growing up in a very small town.
The setting for The Invisible Triangle is far from my home. In the 1990s, a series of women went missing. To the police and even to some of their families, these were people who just chose to walk away from their lives. Never seriously investigated and with no one connecting the dots, vital clues and the hope of finding the person or persons responsible vanished, just like these women. It was quite instructive to see how the political climate and social norms played such a large role in these tragedies, and not in a good way. The author had to rely on a lot of hearsay and supposition because so little is known. I wish there had been more evidence, but the author had to work with what was available.
Some true crime books end without closure, and this is one of those times. I would hope that maybe someone reads it and has a tip to share with law enforcement. Quite an informative eye-opening look at a side of Ireland I never knew existed. 3.5 stars.

Claire McGowan, a crime novelist, looks into unsolved disappearances of young women in Ireland in the 1990s in her non-fiction book The Vanishing Triangle. McGowan notes an important detail that has hampered a lot of investigations in many countries, misogyny and patriarchal police forces, as factors in not bringing a person or people to justice in the eight missing women cases that she chronicles.
This is a well-researched, empathetic look into the injustice that the victims and their families have faced since their disappearances three decades ago. Women were blamed for their disappearances, and instead of searching for the missing women or their perpetrators, the institutions that were supposed to protect them failed.

What an incredible yet sad book. This author wrote about how many missing persons (mostly women) are in Ireland at any given time. She highlighted several cases of people who went missing and to this day, no bodies have been found. Many of the families of the missing person have passed away without knowing the persons fate. People may know information or may not want to get involved. The author expressed her disdain at the lack of attention to these cases and why it takes so long to look for clues or information. I was shocked at how many cases are left unsolved in Ireland. This book is very eye opening about this problem everywhere. No one is safe.

A true crime investigation of a series of disappearances in 1990's Ireland, that looks at violence against women and a culture of silence and secrets.

I struggled to get through this to be honest. There was very little flow in the structure of the writing and a whole lot of repetition that made it feel more like a first draft. From the start we are bombarded with names and dates and places, over and over again with not enough time dedicated to any of them to form any real connection. So, despite them being repeated countless times over the course of the book, it was very difficult to differentiate between them.
And although she made clear from the start these crimes were not something she could solve, she simply wanted to find out why they could happen, I don't think that goal was acheived. There was a lot of speculation and admonishment of the culture and institutions in place at the time, but it just seemed to go around in circles.

I was shocked to realise upon finishing, how short this book actually is, it felt so much longer(and so much longer than it needed to be).

Thank you NetGalley and Little A for my e-arc of this title, recieved in exchange for an honest review.

Having just finished The Vanishing Triangle I am stunned by the facts contained within. The author presents the facts - as she knows them - clearly and her frustration with the things that hampered each investigation is evident. Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this prior to publication.
Growing up in Ireland in the 1990s our author felt it was a safe place. Yet she soon becomes aware of a dark undercurrent to her seemingly idyllic homeland. People feared getting caught up in The Troubles, but - for most - daily life was uneventful. Unfortunately, in researching this book she learns that Ireland in the 90s was also the kind of place where eight women could disappear leaving no trace.
The book focuses on these cold cases. Each of the eight women involved disappeared and no trace of their body has been found. Assumptions may have been made by gardai about these women, which certainly impacted the investigations, and there was a terrifying lack of evidence to help. People talked, and rumours abound of men known to have committed similar crimes that couldn’t be arrested. While this is fascinating, there’s little to add to the story.
Instead, McGowan focuses on her reflections on life at the time and the societal pressures that impacted the investigations. We get a personal response to her childhood Ireland and it is a damning portrait that is painted. While McGowan evidently loves her homeland, her frustration at the judgments made and the societal beliefs that continue to influence such investigations is clear.
There’s no answers. For the families involved I can only imagine how paralysing it is to have such a situation occur. While this book was an interesting read, I feel its primary purpose is to act as a reminder of these missing women. Someone knows something, and it would be nice for the families to have closure. Even better would be for a book such as this to force change to at least try and minimise the chances of such things occurring again.

Fascinating! I was hooked reading about these missing and murdered women and the research into the cases. McGowan does an amazing job not only honoring the women but respecting their memories.
Seeing what men, men if power, churches and more get away with was another piece that’s quite important.
As someone from a second generation Irish Immigrant family, it really interested me, and it showed just how much work we need to do as women and for women.

Thank you Claire McGowan for this book!

Claire McGowan is telling a story that needs to be told. While it is unclear how many of the missing women are victims of the same person(s), the sheer number is alarming and it's important that it be brought to light. There are times when this book, especially in the first half, reads more like a catalog of events rather than an investigation. I appreciate the author for honoring the memories of these women.