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Cover of When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

When the Stars Go Dark

  • 384 pages · about 6 hours
  • First published 2021
  • 8 editions

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1 About this book

Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When unspeakable tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino.

She spent summers there as a child with her beloved grandparents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her to heal. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. Anna is in no condition to become involved with the search - until a childhood friend, now the village sheriff, pleads for her help.

Then, just days later, a twelve-year-old girl is abducted from her home. The crimes feel frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when a string of unsolved murders touched Mendocino. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment...

  • Mystery & detective, women sleuths
  • Mystery & detective, police procedural
  • Women detectives
  • Resilience (Personality trait)
  • Detectives
  • Mystery
  • Young women
  • Kidnapping victims

2 About Paula McLain

Born 1965

Paula McLain (born 1965) is an American author best known for her novel, The Paris Wife, a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's first marriage which became a long-time New York Times bestseller. She has published two collections of poetry, a memoir about growing up in the foster system, and the novel A Ticket to Ride.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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