The Vanishing Triangle

by Claire McGowan

From the bestselling author of What You Did comes a true-crime investigation that cast a dark shadow over the Ireland of her childhood.

Ireland in the 1990s seemed a safe place for women. With the news dominated by the Troubles, it was easy to ignore non-political murders and sexual violence, to trust that you weren’t going to be dragged into the shadows and killed. But beneath the surface, a far darker reality had taken hold.

In this candid investigation into the society and circumstances that allowed eight young women to vanish without a trace—no conclusion or conviction, no resolution for their loved ones—bestselling crime novelist Claire McGowan delivers a righteous polemic against the culture of secrecy, victim-blaming and shame that left these women’s bodies unfound, their fates unknown, their assailants unpunished.

McGowan reveals an Ireland not of leprechauns and craic but of outdated social and sexual mores, where women and their bodies were of secondary importance to perceived propriety and misguided politics—a place of well-buttoned lips and stony silence, inadequate police and paramilitary threat.

Was an unknown serial killer at large or was there something even more insidious at work? In this insightful, sensitively drawn account, McGowan exposes a system that failed these eight women—and continues to fail women to this day.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Ireland, History, Crime, Ebooks, Mystery

186 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2022

About the author

Claire McGowan grew up in a small village in Northern Ireland. After a degree in English and French from Oxford University she moved to London and worked in the charity sector. THE FALL is her first novel, which is followed by a series starring forensic psychologist Paula Maguire. She also writes as Eva Woods.

Reviews

[L.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was definitely engaged in this investigation and inquiry in a true crime book by Claire McGowan. I love her books and knew she would present the facts and speculations in an interesting way. My first thoughts are how compelling and disturbing that these people are missing in Ireland and no clues can be found. I know there are some reviews that are negative towards this author, but it is more an awareness for people like me that had no idea this had happened.

I shuddered over the lack of analysis of 8 young women vanishing without a trace during this time period between 1993-1998. They could not connect these atrocious crimes to a serial killer. This was before DNA could be used as an extraction of evidence, even though there were similarities and differences as well as influences during this time period that hindered or played a huge role. Sad to say that the prejudice against women was mind-blowing with victim shaming and secrecy beyond my imagination.

The research into that time period was astounding and forthcoming that I was unaware of leaving me impressed with her studies not to mention she was a child at this time sheltered and unaware of the fear released in their area. The children were more worried and scared of the "troubles" The Northern Ireland conflict in 1968-1998 between the Protestant loyalist who wanted the province to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the Roman Catholic republicans wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the republic of Ireland. I'm not even going to attempt to understand all of their history, but I felt she did a good job at explaining it. In this movement, there was social upheaval, political unrest against homosexuals, contraception, abortion, divorce and the Catholic Church sex scandals. Less emphasis was placed on the missing people and more on the intrusions and bombings.

Claire analyzed the similarities and differences between the crimes and counteracted the social changes with the influence of religion and politics. Clever speculations that left some readers upset, I thought was brilliant. I'm glad she brought this to my attention and even though it was compelling as well as disturbing it had me going down a rabbit hole. The only disappointment is I will probably never travel to this beautiful country.

Thank you NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for this title in exchange for my honest review.

[Karine · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

True crime

I jumped into this book without having any idea what it was about. I was pleasantly surprised by the contents. Claire McGowan writes about the epidemic of missing and murdered women in Ireland during the nineties. The vanishing triangle is the geographic area, centred on Dublin, in which a spate of women went missing between 1993 and 1998. There are theories that this was the work of a serial offender but there are many other theories and McGowan offers only an educated guess on some of the cases. She also identifies many other disappearances that may or may not be related to eight cases she focuses on.

What she does really well is put these disappearances into the social and political context that was Ireland during that era. It was a time of great social upheaval and the Troubles were still going on. Homosexuality had only just recently been de-criminalised and I don’t remember the specific years but in the same era as contraception was legalised - yes, you read that right, it was so recent! Abortion was still a no-no. Divorce was only allowed very recently and the last Magdalen laundry only closed it’s doors in 1996! Ireland was still in the grip of the Catholic Church and sex was still a shameful subject. Particularly for women.

Conviction rates for sexual assaults are still very low today but back then it was extremely difficult. Women were made to feel shameful for simply going about their lives. A lot of abuse was hidden behind closed doors and not spoken of for shame. It is therefore not surprising that the police response in many of the cases sought solutions that blamed the women. Did she run away with a man? Did she take a dangerous path home? Was she dressed provocatively? Was she depressed? Maybe she killed herself? And so on.

McGowan also stresses the Troubles themselves seemed to dominate the news. What is one missing woman when a bomb has killed many more? I found the book interesting and informative although of course, as a woman, it’s all very depressing to see how little has changed. I don’t think the issue is worse in Ireland than anywhere else but, nevertheless, it was an interesting piece of research, especially as the author lived through those times in the same area and can speak with conviction of her experiences.

On the other hand there was a lot of repetition and drawing of potentially long bows. Many thanks to Netgalley and Amazon Publishing UK for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

[Belinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just... not good. Like I'm not sure why I kept listening to be honest. I'm giving it a very generous two stars, purely because I knew nothing about these cases and it was interesting hearing them being brought to light...

The author talks about herself and her life in a Northern Irish border town constantly. This isn't at at relevant to the cases, except maaaaaaybe one, but its a stretch. She really wants these disappearances to be related to the Troubles, but gives space evidence to suggest any connection.

She keeps talking about her fiction novels, which honestly, also sound bad from her descriptions of them.

Ireland is referred to at least once as being part of the UK. I get the author is from the North, but that doesn't excuse information that is plain wrong.

Three times the author insinuates that there are bodies buried in the foundations of Celtic Tiger era buildings, which seems to be a flight of fancy she has that she never attempts to justify.

She talks down about Ireland. Constantly. She talks about the Gardaí consulting psychics as being a super special Irish thing that's done because the Irish believe in fairies, but ignores the fact that police all over the world consult psychics in missing persons cases. In one case, a farmer find evidence and, presumably thinking its someone fly tipping, burns it. Which is a completely normal reaction, and the farmer did come forward as soon as he realised what he has burned. The author paints him as being simple, strange, sinister... the embodiment of everything wrong in Ireland in the 90s. We're regularly told that Ireland in the 90s was a terrible place to be a woman, which I can't say is wrong, but it is majorly simplifying a complicated societal issue that was changing for the better by the 90s.

On many, many occasions she seems to lose track of what the book is supposed to be about.

I know "Ireland's vanishing triangle" is how these cases are known, but to someone with no knowledge of Irish geography, it would sound like like all take place just a few kilometers apart. I feel like any book on the subject should at least mention that the "triangle" covers most of leinster, which is nearly 20,000km squared.

I could go on, but this is already far too long. You get the picture. Its bad, don't bother with it.

[Ingrid · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has compiled a number of murders/disappearances of women that took place at a certain time and in a certain triangle of Ireland. She places these disappearances in the culture of the country. It's a bit boring to read, lots of names and similar cases. I looked up the names on the internet so I'd have a face to a name.
Nevertheless, I think it is valuable that these people are not forgotten and that the solution of their disappearance/murder will come closer by this attention.

[Pooja Peravali · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the 1990s, eight women vanished from the same area in Ireland. Their cases are officially unsolved, their bodies mostly undiscovered, their stories untold.

The trouble with true crime is that, with so many ongoing cases, it is easy to overlook individual ones, especially when the trail has grown cold. In this book, the author strives to correct this by telling us the tales of these women and many others who were abducted and murdered in Ireland during this time.

I found the writing engaging and liked how the author made the setting come alive with her discussion of the culture and social mores of Ireland during the time of the disappearances. It provided much needed context about the kind of world that these women lived in and why their stories may have been overlooked.

However, the writing felt oddly stream-of-consciousness, and the many women mentioned means that the author did not go into much detail about any of them. Also, she makes a lot of casually thought out assertions about the crimes and where the bodies may be, as well as relating a lot of hearsay - what 'everyone' knows about the cases that can't be truly put into print - which made for a pretty patchy reading experience.

Ultimately an interesting starting point for these cases, but the whole of the book felt under-researched.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

So it appears that this author typically writes fiction suspense, and if I were still deep into reading that genre I would definitely buy her other books. She did a great job of describing these abductions and probable murders very well while at the same time keeping current events of Northern Ireland and the Pale and how easy it is to cross the border in the readers' minds. Nothing is sacred-including the Irish Catholic Church.
I have to admit this (and reading this book makes me want to come clean) I will not walk in my neighborhood or its surroundings because of issues just like this. Where I live (the immediate area) is quite safe with expensive homes, but turn the incorrect corner and one wonders if that strong odor is meth cooking. Not to mention that the great Kroger name game christened mine the Dirty Kroger. So No. to quote Morbid -fresh air is for dead people.

[audrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a big fan of this author's crime novels. But rehashing unsolved real-world murders while making wild stabs in the dark (aha, aha) at who might have done them, without anything so useful as a bibliography, works cited, or even basic statistics to back up your theories is not functional reporting.

McGowan cites Michelle McNamara's book as an inspiration for this one, and while they both lay out the facts of each case, McNamara refrains from speculating in a half-crazed and unsubstantiated manner. Not so, McGowan.

After his arrest, in 1999, there were no more disappearances. Was that just a coincidence?

He was in prison until 1995, when he got out on appeal, and died in 1998, the year of the last disappearances. That meant he wasn’t around for most of the triangle disappearances, but he was for these earlier murders. Assuming he did kill Patricia after all, did he do it again in the nineties and manage not to get caught this time?

When she was found,[gross details redacted] just like Larry Murphy had done to the woman in Carlow. Larry Murphy was in his early twenties in 1987 – could he have committed this terrible crime, or is it just coincidence again?

GIRL. COME ON.

One interesting aspect of the book for me, was that McGowan compares crime in rural Ireland more than a half dozen times by saying "at least it's not America": He strikes me as an American kind of villain, with his guns and his strength, not someone you’d find in Ireland.

Fair point, we're a full struggle right now as much as we've ever been in the last 200 years. That said, one thesis of McGowan's book is that the impoverished state of public transport in rural Ireland is also a major culprit in putting women in harm's way: Even nowadays, public transport is scarce in Ireland, with one bus an hour serving most villages and perhaps a long walk to the stop.

Reader, I live a couple miles outside the nearest village here in the States, and I can only dream of one bus an hour. We get two *per day*, weekdays only, and the walk to get to the nearest stop is three and a half miles on a highway with no shoulder. So maybe in amongst all the BUT HE COULD HAVE, IS WHAT I'M SAYING, that bit did resonate.

Then again, overall, she's aiming wide with her suppositions. Grand Canyon-wide.

Although this case seems far outside the scope of the disappearances – fourteen years before the first missing woman – it shows that killers may strike once then either never do it again, or be more careful about leaving a trail.

You don't say.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A woman runs to catch a bus on a spring afternoon and is never seen again. Another woman misses a bus and hitch-hikes home, with the same outcome. Killers go undetected, sometimes for ever. We live with the not-knowing.

On its surface, The Vanishing Triangle covers a cluster of missing-person's cases that plagued Ireland in the nineties, that through institutional and social breakdowns continue to remain unsolved to this day. Without a shred of new evidence or leads or suspects to present a new angle to an old mystery, McGowan changes tact and analyses these cases through the socio-economic and political lens that informed the times. Ireland is a small island. Travelling by car from Cork to Belfast (both at opposite corners of the map) would take under five hours, but political divisions made Northern Ireland and the Republic seem world's apart, despite no tangible border.

As in so many of these triangle cases, a suffocating silence has covered her disappearance. Someone must know how a young woman could vanish off the streets of a city in the middle of the day. But no one is talking.

The Troubles were a uniquely turbulent time in Northern Irish history that bled into the Republic in marked ways that would ultimately prove detrimental to the missing women. If it wasn't a provable act of sectarian violence, the police didn't know how to competently classify it. While a misogynistic culture of judgement and silence aided and abetted these disappearances when it came to witness testimony and their enquiries, the state's inability to effectively prosecute violent sex offenders (allowing them to reoffend within a year or so) and investigate missing person's cases without falling back on tired sexist tropes (running away with a man or suicide without evidence or a body, all while very credible suspects lurk on the fringes, etc.) and actively rejecting the possibility of foul play is abominable. And infuriating to read.

McGowan also explores the distrust between the Irish people and its institutions—the state and the Church—in great detail, where the muddied waters of politics could stop a priest from notifying authorities of a body found on his premises, or a man could find the dumped belongings of a missing woman and not report them until a year later, long after he'd burned them. More impressively, McGowan details the cases with compassion and sensitivity, careful not to make any hasty judgments herself as she acknowledges off-hand by referring to her instincts as a crime fiction writer.

Both described that same state peculiar to families of the missing, where you're grieving, except grief relies on certainty and you don't even have that. You're just stuck, waiting to feel the wound that's been inflicted on you.

Ever since I heard about the phenomena of the vanishing triangle, I'd been curious about reading something better sourced and researched than the barebones Wikipedia page it links to, and with Claire McGowan's book I couldn't have asked for a better written and more comprehensive account.

[Chrissie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive examination of missing and murdered women in Ireland, but also a look at Ireland itself, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. The book also gives a snapshot of "The Troubles" (I have always thought this a flippant name for the death and destruction that occurred). I found it an absorbing read, but also, as a woman, rather depressing - other countries do not cover themselves in glory in their handling of rapes and murders of females either.

I will leave you with a quote from this book, which I hope gives readers as much pause for thought as it did me:

"It's likely it won't be proved unless bodies are found or someone speaks out. Maybe the important point about these cases is not who did it, which we may never know. Maybe it's what they tell us about Ireland, and the world generally, and its attitudes to women."

[Louise Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ireland in the 1990s seemed a safe place for women. With the news dominated by the Troubles, it was easy to ignore non=political murders and sexual violence, to trust that you weren't going to be dragged into the shadows and killed. But beneath the surface, a far darker reality had taken hold. In this candid investigation into the society and circumstances that allowed eight young women to vanish without trace - no conclusion or conviction, no resolution for their loved ones - best selling crime novelist Claire McGowan deliver a righteous polemic against the culture of secrecy, victim-blaming and shame that left these women's bodies unfound, their fate unknown, their associates unpunished.

I had no knowledge of these murders until I read this book. There's quite a lot of violence and it tells of the fears the women have while facing the justice system. There's a lot of repetition which could be irritating. It's more about the authors thoughts and opinions rather than true facts. The terrorism of the Troubles in Ireland would have hindered the investigations. Parts of the book were really interesting, but there were other parts that were irrelevant.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #AmazonPublishingGroup and the author #ClaireMcGowan for my ARC of #TheVanishingTriangle in exchange for an honest review.

[Tonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vanishing Triangle by Claire McGowan is a non-fiction piece about the eight women who disappeared in the 90's in Ireland. This is a well researched book, which pushed the book up one additional star for me. These women and their lives, their stories deserve to be told and I feel that McGowan does a great job of balancing information with the stories of the women who went missing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing UK and author Claire McGowan for this digital review copy for me to read. My reviews are voluntary and my opinions are my own.

[Karen Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is an appalling portrayal of Ireland based on unsubstantiated information. Clearly it was put together from a cursory trawl of the internet. She manages to somehow refer to every major crime case in Ireland over last 30 years irrespective of its relevance to her story. Her personal statements are ridiculous eg OJ Simpson’s not guilty verdict being an example of misogyny when we know the verdict was to do with race . Most ridiculous of many crazy comments is when she states that some men in Ireland voted no in Abortion referendum to punish women as a protest to the ‘Rugby rape trial’

Ireland was and is far from perfect but don’t judge it based on this story

[Suzi (Lil Bit Reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

From bestselling suspense author Claire McGowan comes a nonfiction book about missing women in 1990s Ireland. Multiple women, mostly young, went missing in an area that came to be known as “The Vanishing Triangle.” Most of their disappearances are still unsolved today. Despite growing up in the same area, Ms. McGowan didn’t learn how widespread these crimes were until many years later.

The disturbing subject matter makes this a hard book to read, but the author does a compelling job of introducing us to the missing women and making convincing cases that their disappearances were the result of foul play. What is particularly well done is the author’s social commentary on violence toward women and the skillful way she puts the crimes into political and social context – inadequate police response, attitudes toward women, victim-blaming, and the wide-reaching effects of religion. Although a bit repetitive and at times confusing to a non-Irish reader, this book is a fascinating and well-researched look at these women’s cases, and it is clear how deeply they affected Ms. McGowan.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for providing me an advance copy of this book.

[Shelby Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sociological and feminist lens on murders and crime was such an interesting perspective and I think more media about crime should think about political, social, and environmental factors. That being said, this book was so disorganized and repeated things (almost word for word) sometimes. It was pretty frustrating when the author kept saying “as mentioned earlier” — it was very jarring and I wouldn’t say this was a well-written book.

Favorite Quotes:
“This throwaway comment made me think about how we judge women, how we are blamed for our own rapes and murders” (pg. 34).
“It still shocks me, and maybe that’s good — we should be shocked by how this keeps happening, older and powerful men being listened to and the girls and women they hurt not being believed” (pg. 54).
“There was a potent message in this for young girls watching, as I was: even if it’s obvious who hurt you, you still might not be believed” (pg. 117).
“And that there’s a hierarchy of death. If you are beautiful, blonde, a mother, a married woman, then people will care about your murder. If you aren’t, you might be out of luck” (pg. 123).
“So what are we supposed to do to keep ourselves safe? Not leave the house in daylight? Not get a lift, in a country with scarce public transport? Not stay at home? Not love a man?” (pg. 144).

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book if you’re a regular viewer of shows like Dateline and 48 Hours. I’m not a big reader of true crime so I wasn’t bothered by the author’s musings and speculation rather than actually solving anything. It seemed especially bizarre to me that there were a couple of cases not investigated but the gardaí because they dismissed them as suicides…even though no body was found. Huh?

[Marija · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked reading this true crime story. I always had a notebook by my side to write notes and search online for additional info. It is a bit different from other books by the author, but in this way, we all know the stories about those abducted and killed victims that are never found in the area of the Vanishing triangle in Ireland.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really good. I listened to audio, read by the author and loved it. There was a great mix of the case and what was happening in Ireland and Northern Ireland at the time, plus other cases that may or may not be related. I’d totally listen to another true crime book by this author.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mc Gowan focuses on half a dozen murders that happened in a triangular area around Dublin in the 1970's and 1980's. These were women who disappeared, snatched off the street, and were later found murdered. She reports the lack of investigation by the Garda, Irish police. This was before the proliferation of CCTV and the use of DNA to solve crimes. She branches out and adds other disappearances and murders to the original handful.

Her message is that despite people living in Ireland, as well as those visiting, seeing Ireland as a safe place for women, it is not. I have had two experiences traveling there which opened my eyes. One was when traveling alone in 1972, when I realized in time that an older man's overtures were not innocent. In the late 1970's I was visiting an American friend staying in Connemara. We were out after dark on our bikes when a car stopped and some men (I think 2 or 3) started pulling us off our bikes and off the road. Luckily another car saw what was happening and came to our rescue.

The book was very very repetitive and lacked editing. It appears to be a self-published offering.
A long article or series of articles would have been more effective. McGowan mentions the large number of women who have disappeared. From here, she goes off on a tangent about cases of girls and women around the world who have been imprisoned for years by men. She fails to mention the large number of women in Ireland who have been murdered by their husbands/partners. There is currently (July 2022) a series in the Irish Times about these cases.

[miss.mesmerized mesmerized · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crime writer Claire McGowan has grown up in a small town in Northern Ireland which she always perceived as a safe place despite the Troubles. Of course, the news daily reported about bombings and people killed but what she hadn’t been aware of was the incredibly high number of girls and women who were abducted or simply vanished in both Northern and the Republic of Ireland. Some of the cases happened close to where she lived, happened to girls her age who roamed the same places when she did but she has never even heard of it. Only rarely was a suspect arrested and even more seldom convicted for rape or murder. How could the country have such a high number of women murdered and except for their families nobody seems to care?

I have enjoyed Claire McGowan’s crime novels for some years now, not only because the plots are suspenseful and complex, but also because she manages to capture the atmosphere of a place, to create a special mood that can only exist there. With her deep understanding for the people and the places they live and which shape their thinking and acting, I was curious to read her true crime investigation of femicides.

What her enquiry uncovers is not the Ireland that has attracted tourists and business for decades. It is a country that was shaped by the Catholic church and whose legislation was far behind other European countries in terms of women’s rights. With the Troubles, it was often safer not to have seen anything and, first and foremost, not to say anything, thus atrocious crimes could happen in broad daylight in front of everybody’s eyes. The deeper she digs the more cases she finds and can link to a small area, the so called “Vanishing Triangle”, where an astonishing number of woman have disappeared and whose cases remain unsolved.

McGowan tells the women’s stories, lists the evidence and also provides reasons why their bodies are still missing or why prime suspects still walk free. All this grants a look in the country’s state in the 1980s and 1990s – a lot has changed since, but still society and police often fail female victims today.

A read which is as interesting as it is disturbing. I really enjoy listening to true crime podcasts thus the topic attracted me immediately. What I really appreciated was that Claire McGowan did not take a neutral position towards her account but you can sense her anger and the incredulity with which she looks at her findings and which makes you wonder why not more people shout out because of this.

[Gayle (OutsmartYourShelf) · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘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

[Federica · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Ceeceereads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the author and was interested to read this book. I thought she painted a vivid picture of the time, life in Ireland and the difficulties women faced. The crimes were particularly bleak and sad, in their nature of ‘forgotten-ness’. For a true crime read, I felt there was something missing- a lack of structure and an emotional connection through the storytelling. It was interesting but I wasn’t completely gripped. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

[Angie F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually read any type of true crime but having grown up in the same area as the author, albeit a few years earlier, the subject matter was of great interest to me. In the 90s I was in my twenties, working in Belfast and travelling over the border for nights out. I was always aware of the chance of getting caught up in a bomb, you couldn't grow up in Northern Ireland during the troubles and not know the risks. But I didn't realise that my nights out in Dundalk could have left me vulnerable to a more insidious threat. I had heard talk of bodies being found in the Wicklow hills but it was almost an urban legend. I had certainly never heard a news report confirming this. It was only about 5 years ago on a break in Dublin that I caught a documentary on RTE, the national Irish TV channel, about the fact that so many women had gone missing in the same area during the 90s. I was horrified that this had not been reported at home which was only a couple of hours drive up the road. In fact, until I read this book, I had never heard of it again.
I think Claire did a wonderful job with this book. As a novelist she knows how to capture the reader's attention from page 1 so she was able to tell this story without it feeling dry and boring. I loved the way she pointed out clumps of what could be coincidence or may be something far more sinister. My only criticism, and it's more of a suggestion, would be that some kind of map or timeline would make it easier to follow the individual cases, especially if a reader doesn't know the area. This book has really got me thinking about just how small Ireland is yet the media acts as if the North and the South are oceans apart. These terrible events could have just as easily taken place on either side of the border. Hopefully one day these womens' disappearances will be solved but sadly in many cases it is already to late for their families.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received a free copy of this novel from NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for my honest review.*

I am all about true crime TV and stories, but this book was disturbing for many reasons. There was a lot of information about Ireland, the IRA, war and the politics in the country. So much strife and then missing girls and women and the violence that women face on the regular in Ireland.

Claire McGowan is a great writer and this book was set up in a great way to understand the main location - The Vanishing Triangle - that the women have gone missing from. There was a lot of detail from the initial investigations but also from the special team that tried to investigate a group of the murders later. It's hard to believe that there could be so many reasons for the missing girls to have fallen through the cracks.

I will definitely recommend to anyone looking for a true crime read.

[Hannah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not a particularly fun or easy read, definitely an important one to learn about the history of the lost and murdered women of Ireland.

[María Alcaide · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*s

[Nicole Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear Claire McGowan, I love your thriller books. So surely a true crime written by you must be amazing? Nope.

This book was an utter slog to get through. I’m not sure who edited it, but they did a piss poor job. This felt more like an ambling, circular rant.