The novel that I read was The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant. The novel is set in Germany in a small town where everyone knows each other, and their whereabouts. Yet when the day is still light, children start to disappear leaving not a single trace. Pia Kolvenbach, a girl of only ten, is intrigued and sets out to investigate and get to the bottom of the disappearances.

 I think that this novel gives an interesting and detailed first-person account of Pia’s thoughts and actions. The novel draws you in with its main character, as although Pia is only ten, unlike most children her age she is almost fearless and decides to take interest and look into in the disappearances that take place around her. Pia is an inquisitive girl, always asking questions, and often her imagination takes over:

 ‘Somehow I imagined the wall as an organic thing, a tunnel burrowed, crudely, through the earth as though by a monstrous mole’.

In my opinion the most enjoyable part of the novel would have to be the climax as it took me by surprise, and was not what I had expected. This was so because Linden invented well thought-out characters. An example would be when the novel portrays a certain character with dark qualities (even his name is ‘Herr Duster’) but in fact it is revealed to the reader towards the end that he is quite the opposite.

‘I imagined him having a wild insane voice, like an animal, or being like the girl in the fairy tale who dropped a toad out of her mouth every time she spoke, on the contrary he actually sounded quite sane’.

This quotation shows how Pia’s expectations had turned out to be wrong. It is factors like this that made me feel intrigued and wanted to read on.

‘There was a very long silence, punctuated only by the creaking of chairs and the uncomfortable shuffling of tightly packed bodies jockeying for position’.

Linden fills the novel with sentences similar to this, using many metaphors and similes to enhance the standard of writing.

Overall I think that this novel was definitely worth reading, but the pace of writing was slower that I would have chosen. Therefore I would give this book a rating of 7/10 and would recommend it to readers who are interested in mystery.