THE GIRLS BEFORE

A young woman locked in an underground bunker and a guilt-ridden search-and-rescue expert drive the dual narratives of Marshall’s latest thriller.

Stranger is running out of time. It’s been several days since her captor opened the door to her prison, and her food supply is running low. She sits in the dark, chained to the wall, surrounded by the carved inscriptions of previous victims and the ghostly whisperings of the “gossamer girls.” If Stranger wants to live, she must make a final attempt to escape. High school counselor Audrey Dixon spends much of her free time as an expert search-and-rescue volunteer. Her obsession was born out of the decade-old disappearance of her former best friend, Janie Martin, and the regret she felt over their last conversation. While tracking a 4-year-old boy who’s wandered into the woods, Audrey discovers a string of white plastic beads, “witch beads,” a token of a local superstition involving a forest witch who saved girls from bad men. Do these beads belong to 17-year-old Meghan Vale, who vanished three months ago? Although the police consider Meghan to be a runaway, Audrey’s instincts tell her the teen might have been kidnapped on land belonging to a prominent local family. Her investigation leads her down a dark and unexpected path. With the complex dual narratives and timelines, the author sets up an intriguing premise that, unfortunately, devolves into a series of increasingly bonkers, manipulative plot twists. Likewise, some of the characters’ actions are inconsistent. One character wants to call the police when a crime is uncovered, but a few pages later, is dead set against calling them. This makes for muddled, confusing reading. With her canine partner, Barry, the tough but guarded Audrey is an appealing protagonist who deserves an adventure worthy of her SAR skills.

Recommended only for die-hard Marshall fans.