Book Review: HOW QUICKLY SHE DISAPPEARS by Raymond Fleischmann

Title: HOW QUICKLY SHE DISAPPEARS

Author: Raymond Fleischmann
Publisher: Berkley
Read: December 2019

Expected publication: 14 January 2020

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

It’s 1941 in small-town Alaska and Elisabeth Pfautz is alone. She’s living far from home, struggling through an unhappy marriage, and she spends her days tutoring her precocious young daughter. Elisabeth’s twin sister disappeared without a trace twenty years earlier, and Elisabeth’s life has never recovered. Cryptic visions of her sister haunt her dreams, and Elisabeth’s crushing loneliness grows more intense by the day. But through it all, she clings to one belief: That her sister is still alive, and that they’ll be reunited one day.

And that day may be coming soon. Elisabeth’s world is upended when Alfred Seidel — an enigmatic German bush pilot — arrives in town and murders a local man in cold blood. Sitting in his cell in the wake of his crime, Alfred refuses to speak to anyone except for Elisabeth. He has something to tell her: He knows exactly what happened to her long-missing sister, but he’ll reveal this truth only if Elisabeth fulfills three requests.

Increasingly isolated from her neighbors and imprisoned by the bitter cold and her own obsession, Elisabeth lets herself slip deeper into Alfred’s web. A tenuous friendship forms between them, even as Elisabeth struggles to understand Alfred’s game and what he’s after.

But if it means she’ll get answers, she’s willing to play by his rules. She’s ready to sacrifice whatever it takes to be reunited with her sister, even if it means putting herself — and her family — in mortal danger.

My musings:

HOW QUICKLY SHE DISAPPEARS was one of those books that just appeared on my TBR list as if by magic and totally swept me away. I’m not even sure why I was initially attracted to it, because I wasn’t in the mood for anything remotely Silence-of-the-Lambs-ish, and am always suspicious of comparisons to one of my all-time favourite books THE DRY (Alaska vs Australian outback, so who came up with that one????). Anyway, whatever magic elf put this on my radar – thank you! It was just the perfect fit for me at the time.

Everyone who has read my rambles knows how much I love a remote, atmospheric setting. Alaska being one of my favourites, maybe because it’s high on my holiday bucket list. And the book delivered in every way! Fleischmann has a way with words that instantly conjured up the cold remoteness of the small Alaskan town Elisabeth has found herself stranded in. It’s 1941, and like any good wife, Elisabeth devotes herself to her home and teaching her child, even though she feels that boredom will surely kill her one day. Her husband is gone most of the time, and life away from anything she has known in her former life is simple but also very lonely. Until a stranger arrives in town, and turns Elisabeth’s life upside down.

I loved the slow unravelling of this story, the gradual building of menace, the simmering tension and the questions that kept Elisabeth like a puppet on the strings of her evil puppetmaster until the inevitable finale. Whilst there is little action as such until close to the end, I felt myself on edge the whole time, fearing disaster. It helped that Elisabeth was a character I could relate to, a woman who is driven by solving a mystery from her tragic past. I felt for her! The remoteness of the other characters only reflected her isolation, which slowly but surely lead to her unravelling. If you have ever wondered how sane, intelligent people can make some pretty questionable decisions, than this book explores the emotional hold a sociopath ca have over his victim, the bonds that tie them despite the contempt and disgust Elisabeth feels in the presence of the man.

Parts of the book almost read like a character study, and I thoroughly enjoyed the psychological battle of wills that ensued, highlighting a part of the human psyche we would like to be able to deny in ourselves. But if I was in Elisabeth’s shoes, driven by love and guilt and hope, who is to say how I would react? Add the Alaskan setting and I was totally spellbound.

Summary:

In summary, HOW QUICKLY SHE DISAPPEARS was the perfect fit for me – a slow burning but compelling psychological thriller with a remote Alaskan setting that only served to increase the sense of danger and isolation the characters were facing. I thoroughly enjoyed Fleischmann’s debut novel and can’t wait to read more of his work in future!

Thank you to Edelweiss and Berkley for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.