Baby Megan goes missing during a dinner party, and 40 years later her sister Amanda runs a missing persons charity initially set up to help look for her. There are chapters from the perspective of Billie, Amanda's daughter, who is suspicious of Donna, who claims to be the long lost Megan; chapters transcribing the script of a podcast about the investigation into the disappearance made by the granddaughter of one of the dinner party guests; and short flashbacks to the party itself. Apart from making everyone at the party seem extremely odd and unpleasant, these flashbacks added nothing to the story for me.

I found it hard to keep on top of all the characters down the generations, specially as they had intermarried (and divorced sometimes), so Billie had two sets of grandparents from that group. I also found this overlong, although it picked up towards the end.

SPOILERS

I didn't really understand Donna's actions - her anger seemed directed at the wrong person - what had Amanda ever done to her? Amanda also behaved in ways I find odd - would you really reject your own daughter in favour of your sister, even if you had spent your life looking for her? I appreciate that Amanda was supposed to have been scarred by the events of that night which she had suppressed, but still. The ending, in which Bille decides to let her mother go on looking for Megan rather than face the truth was disappointing to me, although at least Billie had decided to step away from the family obsession with the charity - understandably since she now knows Megan's fate. ( )

There is so much to like about this novel, not just that it is by a South Australian author, or that it is right in the time frame of my own life.

The action begins in 1979 with the disappearance of a 4 month old baby while her parents are at a dinner party in a neighbouring house. 40 years later 'The Callaghan Baby Podcast' is investigating what is now a forty-year-old cold case, bringing together investigative evidence from when the disappearance happened, police reports, a coronial investigation, interviews with suspects, family and neighbours both then and now. The author combines that with other voices, particularly that of Billie, the adult daughter of baby Megan's sister.

This made the structure of the novel very complex, and quite challenging for the reader, but a staggering achievement. So much of the book rang true for me.

The family is marking the anniversary of Megan's disappearance with a family gathering when there is a knock at the door: a stranger is standing on the doorstep.

Little by little, elements of the mystery are revealed and the reader is asked to assess evidence.

Highly recommended. ( )