"Rich in character and place, beautifully written" - review of THE VANISHING PLACE

THE VANISHING PLACE by Zoe Rankin (Moa Press, August 2025)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

On the remote West Coast of the South Island, vast forests stretch out between mountain ranges and rugged beaches. There, in the small town of Koraha, not a lot happens - until a young girl with blood on her hands walks out of the bush and into the local store, collapsing to the floor.

She can't - or won't - speak to anyone. It's the town's sole policeman who recognises her face. She looks exactly like a local girl who disappeared twenty years ago. She has the same red hair. The same green eyes. What horrors has she left behind in the bush? Who will come looking for her? And what secrets are about to come to light?

A twisty and daring thriller about how those close to you can be even more dangerous than the deadliest wilderness. 

Scotland-born author Zoë Rankin’s passion for the outdoors seeps through the pages of her outstanding debut The Vanishing Place, which takes readers deep into the rugged, deadly magnificence of the New Zealand bush. It’s a compelling, atmospheric tale set on the ‘wild West Coast’ of her adopted homeland’s South Island, entwined with smalltown secrets, past sins, atypical upbringings, and religious fervour. With an exceptionally strong sense of people and place; you can almost smell the fern-encrusted undergrowth as you read, hear the babbling streams and birdsong, and feel the scratching anxiety of just how easy it would be to vanish in such isolated back country.

As we begin, Effie is a highly capable police officer on the Isle of Skye in Scotland who has a habit of sometimes stubbornly getting in over her head. Putting herself and others in danger, with the best of intentions. She has always loved remote places, despite mixed memories of growing up in a cabin deep in the bush outside of Koraha, a tiny West Coast settlement, before escaping to the far side of the world as a teenager. But when a girl who looks just like Effie stumbles into a Koraha store, covered in blood, bringing back echoes of a troubling past to the small community, Effie is called back to New Zealand to try to find answers, including what happened to the rest of her own family?

There is a lot to love about The Vanishing Place. Rankin, who has won prizes for her short story writing and been knocking on the door of the (novel) publishing world for a while, masterfully immerses readers in Effie’s tale, past and present, along with that of Lewis, the boy who saved her many years ago, and is now a sole-charge policeman on the West Coast who is trying to deal with Anya, the bloodied young girl who’d appeared out of the bush. The Vanishing Place is an exceptionally well-crafted thriller, rich in character and place, beautifully written.

[This review was first published in the Summer 2025 issue of Deadly Pleasures magazine in the USA]

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned writer, editor, podcast host, awards judge, and event chair. He's the founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards, co-founder of Rotorua Noir, author of Macavity and HRF Keating Award-shortlisted non-fiction work SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, editor of the DARK DEEDS DOWN UNDER anthology series, and writes about books for magazines and newspapers in several countries.