One summer day, at a gas station in a small Vermont town, six-year-old Ernestine Florucci is abducted by a person wearing a rabbit suit while her mother is buying lottery tickets. Twenty-three year old Rhonda Farr is the only witness, and she does nothing as she watches the scene unfold – little Ernie goes with the rabbit so casually, confidently getting into the rabbit’s Volkswagen bug, smiling while the rabbit carefully fastens her seatbelt. The police are skeptical of Rhonda’s story and Ernie’s mother blames her outright. The kidnapping forces Rhonda to face another disappearance, that of her best friend from childhood – Lizzy Shale, whose brother, Peter just so happens to be a prime suspect in Ernie’s abduction.
Unraveling the present mystery plunges Rhonda headlong down the rabbit hole of her past. She must struggle to makes sense of the loss of the two girls, and to ask herself if the Peter she grew up with - and has secretly loved all her life - could have a much darker side.
Wow, why haven't I heard of this author before? She has such an unusual voice and way of making her characters and setting believable. I picked up this book to read on the bus to Dundee and had to finish reading it as soon as I got home because it was impossible to put down. This was an incredibly compelling story and had a lot of twists that I didn't see coming, and just a couple that I sort of suspected. Highly recommended to mystery/thriller fans - this is an author to watch. 10/10
McMahon masterfully takes this strange world that Carroll created and inserts it into "Island of the Lost Girls". It begins with Rhonda watching, unbelievably, as a six-foot tall person dressed as a rabbit kidnaps a young child.
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