Book review: Leave The Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz

Leave The Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz was a much-awaited read for me as the New Zealand and Aussie-dwelling author’s first book, Before You Knew My Name was an absolute favourite of mine when it came out. She gives us another twisty read here, though – for me – the biggest came partway through and was perhaps not leveraged as much as I would have liked cos it was HUGE. Akin to that (midway through the novel) I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh. The revelations keep coming after that but my expectations were perhaps heightened waiting for something to match or top the earlier twist but instead it felt like I was in a sustained state of distrust, or perhaps (for me) there was also an element of uncertainty or confusion.

Nineteen years ago, Ruth-Ann Baker's childhood friend was murdered by convicted killer Ethan Oswald. Haunted by what happened, Ruth has long been convinced Oswald had other victims. But no one has ever believed her.

After dropping out of college and failing to prove her serial killer theory, Ruth is bartending when she hears that another young girl has gone missing from her home town. With Oswald now deceased, she begins to suspect he had an accomplice. A partner in crime who is still active today.

Crossing the globe from New York to New Zealand, Ruth unlocks parts of herself that she hasn't dared to revisit, bringing her perilously close to three different women. The deeper she delves, the more she can't shake the feeling that one of them knows the truth. About her childhood friend. About the missing girl. And, perhaps most dangerously of all, about Ruth herself ...

I loved the tone with which Bublitz opens this… in Ruth Ann’s voice, a kind-of faux overly obvious narration style. A tongue-in-cheek voice-over before we move to her actual narration (in third person). And I was reminded of how much I loved Bublitz’s writing in her first novel – effortless and insightful.

We then get some of Ruth’s backstory, with references to an ‘episode’ five years earlier. In the present Ruth’s already-tenuous world is upended when she receives an amber alert for a seven year old girl who’s gone missing in Ruth’s childhood home town. She tries to resist obsessing or spiralling but soon she’s visited by her past… in the form of girls (including Beth Lovely) who were murdered years before. Beth Lovely’s killer, Ethan Oswald was captured and died in prison but the other three girls who appear to Ruth with Beth want her to prove that he killed them as well.

We learn her obsession with proving Oswald’s guilt led to her ‘episode’ five years earlier and she’s banished the girls since then: Beth and the less dead. The latter being the term coined for those victims assigned less societal value than girls like Beth.

So now, Ruth’s back on the case using online communities and following Oswald’s life before he came across Beth. And soon she’s able to make the linkages, discovering other girls as well… girls who the music teacher seem to favour, and who lived. More interestingly, now women whose lives were later also entwined with murderers and serial killers.

There’s a lot to love about this book though I had to go back and re-read bits of it (several times). I couldn’t get my head around some of the threads  and reveals. Did Oswald definitely kill the other girls? Did he have help, even inadvertent? And Ruth finds herself confronted by the fact that her determinedness that Oswald had an accessory is perhaps absolving him in some way.

The deeper themes however are definitely worth pondering, including the fact that you don’t need to have suffered ‘the most’ to be a victim.

There is responsibility in being the one who didn’t die. p 112

There are also lessons in needing to ‘move on’ from our past and the damage of unresolved trauma. And a reminder of the importance of forgiving oneself for past mistakes, even if logic deems it wasn’t your fault.

To have made the worst mistake of your life at seven years old is a terrible weight to carry through your life. p 250

Leave The Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in late October 2024. And though I didn’t love this as much as her debut, I can’t wait to read whatever she offers up next.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.