“When Nina grew up and they started dating, I’d seen hm around our house, but I’d never truly looked at him. I’d never felt the need to. Because I’d known him his whole life. I thought that made him safe. I thought he was a nice boy who was in love with my daughter.”

What Happened To Nina is the second stand-alone novel by award-winning, best-selling Irish-born Australian author, Dervla McTiernan. When, after blowing off her work responsibilities at the family inn to vacation with her boyfriend, Nina Fraser doesn’t return as promised, and her mother, Leanne is at first irritated. But, once she and husband Andy learn that Simon Jordan has returned home alone, some days earlier, they are more concerned.

Simon’s story is sort of credible, but some aspects of Nina’s reported behaviour are out of character for the twenty-year-old they know so well. And, despite their perception of him as a good guy, as he is the last person to have seen her, they can’t help being sceptical.

From the prologue, it’s quickly clear that Simon Jordan is a toxic male, subjecting Nina to violence, gaslighting and coercive control. But like many of that breed, he can also expertly charm. Soon enough, it’s also apparent just how entitled he feels, and how dangerous he is.

Contact with Nina’s friends yields nothing, so Vermont State Police Detective Senior Sergeant Matthew Wright gets involved. Novice Offcer, Sarah Jane Reid is available to assists and his gamble quickly pays off as she proves to have initiative and useful insight. A press conference gets a mixed reaction online and produces little. And in trying to get information and cooperation from the Jordan family, they hit roadblocks at every turn.

Determined to protect his son’s reputation (and thereby his own), ostentatiously wealthy industrialist Rory Jordan hires a PR company to manage their public image. Their strategy involves victim blaming, hoax sightings of Nina in Boston, and online rumour-mongering. Soon, online trolls are having a field day heaping suspicion on Leanne and claiming that Andy is a paedophile. It all helps to muddy the waters around Simon’s involvement.

A search of the Jordans’ vacation property reveals some anomalies that don’t gel with Simon’s story, and Wright is determined to learn the truth. But it’s all too little for the Frasers: Leanne despairs that she will never find out what happened to Nina, and that prompts Andy to take radical action.

McTiernan gives the reader a well-described setting, credible characters, and a clever and topical plot, proving, once again, her prodigious talent for crime fiction. This might be her best yet.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia.