In the vein of Frankenstein and Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde, comes Games For Dead Girls. The story of what horrors, humans, even children, can create but are unable to send back. Supernatural powers are hidden within the caves of southern England and within the psyches of these adolescent girls. Charlie was at the center of a horrific crime as a child. As an adult, she lives under a new identity. When a teenage girl, Cheryl, goes missing decades later in the same seaside town, Charlie returns to the scene of the long-ago violence. Feeling compelled to put her shocking memories to rest by helping to find Cheryl but anxious to avoid recognition, Charlie poses as a folklore researcher and begins collecting information about Cheryl and other missing girls. The novel’s grim setting is a caravan park on the coast where a warren of caves served as hiding spots for pirates and smugglers for centuries. As one person notes, "the caves are a liminal space, neither part of the sea or the land; anything can happen there". The secrets buried in the caves contributes to the feel of the caravan park as a vortex where people go missing. Alternating between time periods, the book revolves around the park. In chapters designated “1988,” Charlie is on holiday with her large extended family during the heyday of the park. At that time, Charlie is a typical kid except for her obsession with gruesome horror stories. By raising the stakes again and again in one of her imaginary games she unknowingly has built suspense across multiple timelines, until the stakes get higher than anyone, including Charlie, could ever have imagined. The story moves quickly across a fractured landscape, with surprising twists revealing one unexpected connection after another. As the smaller mysteries are resolved, this complex thriller pulls the alternating time frames together in a surprising and very satisfying resolution. If you love horror stories...you will eat this one up...if it doesn't get you first. ( )