Review: 'Dear Amy' by Helen Callaghan

A schoolgirl missing for weeks, another missing for decades, and a school teacher-meets-agony aunt stuck in the middle. Who is sending her letters? Are the girls still alive? And why is she herself involved? Dear Amy had all the right ingredients to grab my attention when I first saw it in XXX and now, when I finally got around to reading it. I don't know what's wrong with me but I'd like to apologise to the author and publisher for this severely delayed review. Thanks to Penguin, Michael Joseph, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an hones review.

Pub. Date: 1/26/2017
Publisher: Michael Joseph; Penguin

A local schoolgirl has been missing for weeks when Margot Lewis, agony aunt of the 'Dear Amy' advice column, receives a letter:

Dear Amy,

I've been kidnapped by a strange man.
I don't know where I am.

Please help me,
Bethan Avery

This must be a hoax. Because Bethan Avery is another young girl, who went missing twenty years ago.

As more letters arrive, Margot becomes consumed by finding the sender and - unlike the police - convinced that the girls' disappearances are connected.

Solving this puzzle could save someone's life - but could it also cost Margot her own?

Margot is a school teacher and an agony aunt; she's also on the edge of a messy divorce. Life is a little fragile, let's put it that way. One of her previous students, Katie, has been missing for weeks, now, as well, and on top of that, Margot begins receiving letters to column from a girl who went missing two decades ago, Bethan. Is this a nasty prank? Is this a killer trying to cause more pain? Or is something else going on? As Margot becomes part of the search for not just Katie but also Bethan, her life starts unraveling more and more and Margot has to come to terms with just how messy everything has gotten. Dear Amy is told mostly from Margot's perspective, but we also get the occasional chapter, including a prologue, from Katie, which really helps to amp up the tension. Margot was a very intriguing main character as Dear Amy really takes its time to build her up for us. We don't get three chapters of exposition on her at the beginning, rather we have to go through the whole book figuring out who she is, what her normal is, etc. While at times her reactions didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, this in and of itself made sense within the novel as we were still getting to know her. 

I read Helen Callaghan's Everything is Lies back in 2018 and still have fond memories of the thrill ride that was that novel. That novel very much moved us back and forth between two perspectives, slowly but surely unraveling secrets before a terrible twist. Dear Amy relies on the same structure, largely, which makes complete sense as it is a rock-solid suspense structure. We don't get to see as much of Katie as we do of Margot, but their two storylines intersect nicely to keep the tension going. I would also say that some of the stuff in Katie's story is a lot harder to read as she is in the midst of an abduction. About halfway through Dear Amy I had a pretty good idea that I knew what the main twist would be and I was right, but there were smaller things which I had somehow missed and was still surprised by. As in, small details that probably helped me figure out what was up, but that I hadn't connected individually, if that makes sense. I always enjoy being able to connect the dots and I enjoy it even more if the author can nonetheless surprise me with some extra dots. I once again very much enjoyed reading Helen Callaghan and I will definitely keep an eye out for more books by her.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

Dear Amy is a perfectly decent thriller novel with twisty storylines and an interesting hook! While I saw the main twist coming, I still very much enjoyed the way towards it and all that came with it.