You can run from your past, but not from the girls left behind.

Nineteen years ago, Ruth-Anne Baker's childhood friend was murdered by suspected serial killer Ethan Oswald. Since that day, as much as she's tried to forget, she's been haunted by dead girls. And when another young girl goes missing from the same town, she can't help but be drawn back in to a world she's long since left behind.

As she unlocks parts of herself that she hasn't dared to revisit, Ruth becomes certain a woman helped Oswald commit his terrible crimes. And so, under the guise of producing a true crime podcast, she sets out to prove her theory.

Crossing the globe from New York to New Zealand, Ruth draws perilously closer to three very different women. The deeper she delves, the more she can't shake the feeling that one of them knows the truth - about her childhood friend. About the missing girl. And, perhaps most dangerously of all, about Ruth herself....

Blending blisteringly taut suspense with a moving exploration of the ways in which violent crime ricochets through the lives of those left behind - by the victim, but also the killer - Leave the Girls Behind is a darkly beautiful and remarkably empathetic read that will linger long after you've turned the final page, for fans of Bright Young Women and Notes on an Execution.