What, more girls? Oh, yes, we have girls as far as the eye can see, or more than your bookcases can hold. Honestly, I’m a cynical writer type, and I was shocked at just how many books there are with girl in the title. It’s true that not all of them are post-Gone Girl, which would be the most likely explanation for the proliferation of girl books. But the facts are that crime writers have been toying with girls for much longer than that. Girls are the easiest characters to put into peril and the ones with whom the audience is most likely to sympathize—which is part of what made Flynn’s book such a landmark in crime fiction. She reintroduced us to the femme fatale, the woman—Amy is no girl—who manipulates men and circumstances to get what she wants.
(For more, check out Parts One, Two, Three, and Four of the Great Disambiguation Project.)
Girls on Fire, Robin Wasserman (2016)
Wasserman’s book recreates the feelings of being in high school so well that I found I had to put it aside periodically to process all of the, well, feelings of being in high school. It takes place in 1991: a popular basketball player goes into the woods in Battle Creek, Pennsylvania and disappears. For once, a missing boy! Yet it gets grim pretty fast when he is found three days later with a gun in his hand, a bullet in his head, and attendant rumors about Satanic rituals among the town’s teens. If you love Megan Abbott’s books, this one is for you.
The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum (1998)
Ketchum’s book straddles crime fiction and straight-up horror with its story about a girl held captive and tortured. It bears the imprimatur of the king of horror, Stephen King, who said of the 2007 film adaptation: “The first authentically shocking American film I’ve seen since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer over 20 years ago. If you are easily disturbed, you should not watch this movie (or read the book). If, on the other hand, you are prepared for a long look into hell, suburban style, The Girl Next Door will not disappoint. This is the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand by Me.”
Call Me Star Girl, Louise Beech (2019)
An emotion-laded psychological thriller, Call Me Star Girl revolves around one of the most disturbing crimes there is: the murder of a pregnant woman. Three weeks after the crime, radio host Stella McKeever is doing her final show, and encouraging her listeners to call her and tell her their darkest secrets. Stella has an ulterior motive: a man has been calling the station claiming he has information about the murder, and she is determined to lure him into telling her his secrets. But she might not be controlling this game.
The Girl from Widow Hills, Megan Miranda (2020)
I admit it: I was inclined to like The Girl from Widow Hills when I found out its source material was the story of Baby Jessica, an incident I remember distinctly. A young girl was trapped at the bottom of the well and the whole country watched as the authorities searched and found her at the bottom of a well. Miranda has given her heroine, Arden Maynor, a similar backstory: when she was six years old she was lost while sleepwalking during a storm. She was found alive, with much rejoicing, and the incident defined her life. Her mother wrote a book about it, and everyone wanted to see the little girl who survived such a horrible ordeal. When we encounter her as an adult, Arden has changed her name to Olivia and moved across the country. But the 20-year anniversary of her rescue is coming up, and Olivia feels as if she’s being watched; even more disturbingly, she’s started sleepwalking again, and one night she stumbles into someone she knew from her past.
The Girl in the Green Dress, Cath Staincliffe (2017)
Teenager Allie Kennaway heads off to her prom, cheered on by her dad and her little sister. You must know what happens by now: She never comes home. In a contemporary twist, Allie was beaten to death because she was transgender. As the story proceeds several teenage boys are introduced as her possible assailants, and their family dynamics are explored as the police investigated who committed this brutal, senseless crime.
