ESTHER FREUD'A darkly gripping and addictive read. I tore through it in a few days’

PHILIPPA EAST'Deeply engrossing … an exquisite literary thriller’

WALL STREET JOURNAL‘Emotionally wrenching’

TREVOR WOOD‘Impossible to put down’

A missing woman

30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of a Sydney summer, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared without a trace.

A cold case reopened

In 1997, in a basement flat in Hackney, Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father is under suspicion of Mandy’s murder.

A devastating secret

How well does Isla know her father? Is he capable of doing something terrible? And is there another secret in their community – a conspiracy of silence which stretches deep into Australia’s past?

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‘An atmospheric, convincing portrayal of the way that the decisions we make, both individually and collectively, reverberate down the years’GUARDIAN

SUNDAY TIMES‘Allott uses the scandal of Australia’s stolen children to devastating effect in this memorable debut’

ERIN KELLY'A riveting mystery, beautifully unwound. excavates dark, decades-old secrets buried in human hearts, in families and in nations. I read it in one weekend’The Silence

FIONA MITCHELL‘An impressive and beautifully written, Australian-set debut with the devastating subject of the Stolen Generation at its core’

FRANCESCA JAKOBI‘Tense, atmospheric and brilliantly paced. is fraught with disturbing secrets and powerful emotions. I loved it’The Silence

SUNDAY MIRROR‘A brooding, suspenseful debut’

TELEGRAPH AUSTRALIA‘A suspenseful, beautifully crafted debut for fans of Celeste Ng and Jane Harper’

NEW YORK JOURNAL OF BOOKS‘Intricate and suspenseful… [a] stellar debut’

Longlisted for the New Blood Dagger Award 2021