Non-fiction isn’t usually my thing. This story intrigued me, and having read books by the author before. I thought it would be worth a chance.

I am glad I did. I enjoyed getting the authors view on things and has made me think that some authors should actually be detectives.

Even if non-fiction isn’t your thing but you enjoy books of this genre then I would recommend

Thank you Netgalley and Amazon UK for the chance to read an advanced copy of The vanishing triangle by Claire McGowan. I have enjoyed several of the author's fictional novels, and so when I was offered this true crime story about missing and murdered women in Ireland in the 1990's I decided I would take a chance. I like true crime, but usually when they are written in a dramatization. This was not. While the author definitely investigated, the material was missing her usual flair and it was just like reading facts, just the facts; and speculation. I was expecting more. If you are interested in the social and political views of Ireland in the 1990's you can get a feel for it by reading it in the book. 21/2 stars rounded up.

I really enjoyed this book. It is nonfiction, but wasn’t as ‘heavy’ as other non fiction books tend to be. The material itself was heavy, but it was easy to read/digest. I had never heard of the vanishing triangle before, and I was shocked to learn about all of the women who have disappeared and never been found in Ireland. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think of all of the women and families who have been affected by this, and all of the men who have gone free.

This story was very interesting initially but gradually became more repetitive, continually naming the same girls who had gone missing.. The story didn't seem to have a purpose or possible conclusion.

This is a real life crime story about women who went missing in what they called a triangle in Ireland from 1993 to 1998. Well researched and good for the real life crimes readers.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a advanced copy.

The author does a good job of researching and explaining to the reader how many cases of missing/murdered women may (or may not) be related. However, there's not really a thread to tie everything all together in the end. A lot of it felt like a bit of a stretch and really just seemed to focus on crime against women in that section of Ireland. It would be interesting to see how this area fares vs. other city areas around the world, taking into account the numbers of crimes, population density, etc. to see if there really is a higher crime rate or even a higher rate towards women.

Overall, an interesting read, but not really one with any conclusion since many of these cases are unsolvable.

I truly love Claire McGowan fictional works, so when I got an invitation to read The Vanishing Triangle and found out it was a true crime story I was very excited.
Because, let's be honest, though true crime can be a very interesting genre, sometimes the writing style happens not be its strong point. I knew I wasn't going to run this risk with this book, which indeed flows effortlessly and reads easily and in virtually no time.
The Vanishing Triangle is about unsolved crimes so you must expect assumptions, hypothesis and guesses, even some stretched ones. All in all it is an eye-opener that gives a good insight in what life was about in Ireland in the 90s for women.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Such a sad and shocking true crime novel about women who have gone missing or been killed and failed by the law enforcement who should have tried harder to find them but also sometimes who have protected the criminals at the expense of the victims.

An interesting read about crimes I wasn’t aware had happened.

It’s always good to create awareness, it’s unfortunate that the crimes have not, as yet, been solved.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This true crime book examines the murders of woman in Ireland, especially in the 1990’s. It’s the first true crime book I’ve read but no the first by this author. It was Interesting to read the fiction and non fiction books. It also brought to my attention the terrible treatment of woman and people in Ireland either through laws or society’s expectations of them. Victim blaming, police not investigating immediately are just a few of the unjustices. It makes me appreciate todays technology with CCTV and cell phones. This was a very eye opening book.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy.
It was an interesting book, the author has a way to tell all the cases that you felt that you are reading the news. I felt that Claire made such a incredible work to search all the cases of the "missing" women.
It was a short book but well written.
I never imagine that Ireland has so many cases of missing women, i get shocked. I really like how she was following the clues, tracing the movements. It made me feel that this is how she prepares to write her other books.
I want to read other book from the author and feel how she create a story based on the stories she has read and found in her research

Great book for those who like real life crime stories. I enjoyed it and was somewhat surprised to hear about such crimes in Ireland. We tend to think of it as a simple, beautiful, serene country. It is just so sad to think how easy it can be for someone to go missing and never find out what happened.

Clare McGowan is a writer whose fiction I enjoy very much. In The Vanishing Triangle she turns to non-fiction and the disappearance of eight woman in Ireland whose stories are little known and whose disappearances have not been resolved. McGowan starts from the premise that (as suspected by the police) these missing women are linked by a serial killer. However she soon starts to speculate that perhaps this is not the case and that at least some of them were murdered by partners and ex-partners who were known to be violent. To support this she looks at other cases of missing women and what might have happened to them.

McGowan does a good job in outlining the misogyny of Ireland both north and south,. Some of this book makes very hard reading indeed. In many cases the incompetence of the police (Gardai in the south) is staggering and their complacence in the assumptions they make can only be explained by a total lack of respect towards women. The Church, the state and sectarianism politics are all held to account and it doesn't make for comfortable reading. It might have been the fact that I was reading this on Kindle but at times I found it hard to follow the narrative and to keep track of who was who. It also seemed a little repetitive at times and I thought it needed a tighter structure. But it is worth reading it to remind yourself about the huge numbers of women who are killed by men every year (in the UK, one women is killed by a man every three days) and that the men who kill them are often known to them. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Vanishing Triangle refers to an area in Ireland from where eight young women vanished into thin air never to be seen again. The author discusses the cases & wonders if there was a serial killer operating in the 1990s &, contrasting her comparatively peaceful childhood with the wider issues of the Troubles (political struggle), examines why so many women going missing didn't raise a red flag & merit further attention?

I thought this was a riveting read. It's not a book where the author sets out her case for who committed the crimes, McGowan admits that early on, it's a book which looks at the social issues in Ireland & Northern Ireland at the time. As well as the aforementioned Troubles, McGowan details a culture of misogyny in Ireland for generations. I found that what really came through is the frustration & anger as to why people came forward with witness evidence months or years later when it was too late, or failed to intervene when they saw a young woman being dragged back into a car, or when cases & evidence were mishandled or lost. I found myself feeling the same when reading how the women were either dismissed as runaways or suicides (even though none of their bodies were ever found). Other cases which should have been considered as part of a pattern were written off due to the woman's age or circumstances - prejudices raising their heads at every turn - or because they were a little further afield or happened later on.

Due to the passage of time & without a body, it is difficult to say with any certainty what happened to these women. There are similarities between the cases, & the author asks: is it worse to have had one prolific serial killer in the area or to find out that there were several different sexual predators in the area at the same time? It's a chilling thought.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Amazon Publishing UK, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

‘Imagine this. You’re a young woman in rural Ireland, the kind of place where bad things don’t really happen.’

Ms McGowan writes about a darker side of Ireland in the 1990s, an Ireland in which eight women went missing without a trace between 1993 and 1998. There are other disappearances as well, which may be connected. The vanishing triangle she writes of is a geographic area, centred on Dublin. There are several different theories about these disappearances: perhaps they are the work of a serial offender. Will we ever know?

‘Eight women missing in the same area, and it took years for anyone to even connect them.’

Ms McGowan writes of the background to these disappearances, the social and political context in which they occurred. The Troubles were still ongoing in Ireland in the 1990s, abortion was still forbidden, the sale of contraceptives was illegal until 1985, and women were not treated as equal.

In many of the disappearances Ms McGowan writes about, the missing women were blamed: perhaps they had dressed provocatively, taken a dangerous route home, run away with a different man? Perhaps she had taken
her own life?

It reads as though these disappearances did not matter to the authorities, leaving family and friends without support, to grieve and worry alone. This is not an easy book to read and I finished it wondering where the balance rests between investigation and speculation.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and the Amazon Publishing UK for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Thanks NetGalley for my advanced copy. I was really excited to read this book however it nearly wasn’t worth rating at all. Amateurish, repetitive writing. Boring - I am surprised I finished it. A fascinating series of deaths with many common traits that could have made a really interesting read. I hope the families don’t read it as it did nothing to help find these poor girls and womens’s murderers just supposition- why write a book with nothing much to say???!! If I could score 0 I would!!

This is a difficult and yet important read. I love this author’s fiction writing and I was intrigued by this book.

The vanishing triangle is a non fiction book about things discovered in Claire’s research for her writing. Unlike her fiction these missing women and murders are not all neatly tied up.

The book gives good insight into Ireland in the ‘90s as well as attitudes to women.

A difficult read that highlights the scale of the missing people issue, as well as considering sexism, cultural issues and changes in DNA, CCTV and internet/mobile phone usage.

This book was mis-categorized. It should have been in True Crime, not General Fiction.

The Vanishing Triangle — known in Ireland as The Triangle — is a disturbing area where several women disappeared. The author lays out their cases and tries to draw conclusions. Either way, their disappearances were disturbing, and most of them were raped.

This book made me feel sick to my stomach. There is so much evil perpetrated by men against women. They need to be held accountable, but most of them aren’t.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing Little A for gifting me a digital ARC of this true crime book by Claire McGowan - 3.5 stars rounded up.

In the 1990s, eight women went missing in a small triangle area of Northern Ireland. In an area reeling from The Troubles, these women were basically ignored and their cases floundered or ignored.

I'm a huge fan of Claire McGowan's thrillers. This one was a tougher read for me. I'm probably more of a timeline reader when it comes to true crime; this book was ordered by and stressed the political and societal issues in Ireland and the world. Therefore, I never got quite as involved in the individual murders and missing women stories because there were so very many stories, as well as mentions of them to understand societal issues. But it was a good and necessary read - there is not one among us who is not important and no death or missing person should be ignored. And no victim should be shamed because of their sex, profession or clothing choice.

Overall, this read was informative and shines a light on forgotten disappearances and murders, bringing their stories to light. I feel terrible for not liking this one as much as I feel I should have. I was engaged with the story, but the idea that most of these facts led us nowhere new (also, most of these crimes don't seem to be connected) left me feeling like some of it was unnecessary. I believe these cases deserve the attention given by the author, but generally this true crime just wasn't for me

3.5 stars