This is a truly impressive debut. Set in a small town in Ireland, this literary thriller is about Kala, a teenage girl who disappeared twenty years ago. Her friends have reunited, and old mysteries and unanswered questions start to resurface. 

Although this sounds like a rather tired and familiar plot, this book is incredibly well executed, with excellent writing and characterisation. The dialogue is convincing and manages to avoid a lot of the tropes I tend to find frustrating in these kinds of novels. The characters were a real standout here, there are a lot of them and Walsh manages to give them all a unique voice and feeling. The book feels very complex and very well-realised, although I will caveat that pure mystery/thriller readers will find the pacing of this frustrating and slow.