Skip to main content
The Top Book List
Cover of What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan

Book · Adult

What She Knew

A Novel

by Gilly Macmillan

560 pages · 2018

Honors

Get the book

We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects which books we recommend. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

About the book

“Completely addictive. A nail-biting, sleep-depriving, brilliant read.”

—Saskia Sarginson, author of The Twins

Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes.

Police are called, search parties go out, and Rachel, already insecure after her recent divorce, feels herself coming undone. As hours and then days pass without a sign of Ben, everyone who knew him is called into question, from Rachel’s newly married ex-husband to her mother-of-the-year sister. Inevitably, media attention focuses on Rachel too, and the public’s attitude toward her begins to shift from sympathy to suspicion.

As she desperately pieces together the threadbare clues, Rachel realizes that the greatest dangers may lie not in the anonymous strangers of every parent’s nightmares, but behind the familiar smiles of those she trusts the most.

Where is Ben? The clock is ticking...

“Every parent’s nightmare . . . deceptively clever.”

—Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister

For parents

No age or grade range recorded.

Grade ranges are editorial guidance. Every reader is different.