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The Empty Room

By: Brian McGilloway
Narrated by: Katy Sobey
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Summary

What do you do when your child disappears?

Pandora—Dora—Condron wakes one morning to discover her 17-year-old daughter, Ellie, has not come home after a party.

The day Ellie disappears, Dora is alone as her husband, Eamon, has already left for the day in his job as a long-distance lorry driver. So Dora does the usual things: rings around Ellie's friends...but no one knows where she is. Her panic growing, Dora tries the local hospitals and art college where Ellie is a student—but then the police arrive on her doorstep with the news her daughter's handbag has been discovered dumped in a layby.

So begins Dora's ordeal of waiting and not knowing what has become of her girl. Eamon's lack of empathy and concern, Dora realises, is indicative of the state of their marriage, and left on her own, Dora begins to reassess everything she thought she knew about her family and her life. Increasingly isolated and disillusioned with the police investigation, Dora feels her grip on reality slipping as she takes it upon herself to find her daughter—even if it means tearing apart everything and everybody she had ever loved, and taking justice into her own hands.

©2022 Brian McGilloway (P)2022 Hachette Audio UK
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Critic reviews

"The Empty Room has all the elements of great drama - murder, revenge, sacrifice - along with complex moral questions that will keep you engaged long after the final thrilling page." (Martina Murphy)

"A hugely compelling story of loss, grief and vengeance, The Empty Room is probably the best novel yet by one of our finest mystery writers. Unmissable." (John Connolly)

"The tension and heartbreak kept me turning the pages." (Patricia Gibney)

What listeners say about The Empty Room

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What happens when your daughter doesn't come home

I imagine that Brian McGilloway has a faithful following of fans.

Dora discovers that her adored daughter Ellie has n’t returned home after a night out and the ensuing story is of of Dora’s long and anguished fight to find out just what happened to her .

Along the way there is the terrible pain of loss, vengeance, marital breakdown, deceit, cruelty and finally some kind of comparative peace and hope for an Ellie-less future . A theme of Dora’s full name Pandora (the hope that remained in the myth of Pandora’s box) is played out giving the narrative some depth. The plot twists and veers in different directions and holds the interest (if not the credibility) throughout.

So if this is your sort of listening, then it’s a well structured, cunningly plotted and sympathetically read crime novel .

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Different to other Brian McGilloway stories I’d read

Took a long time for anything to happen. I got it at the end but it was only at the end that I felt it had a narrative.
Loved all of the other Brian McGilloway books, the police procedurals. This just wasn’t for me.

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Great read

Great entertaining reading I would highly recommend. Great writing and story line. Xx xx xx

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Brilliant

Full of emotion and tension. There’s something very flawed about the central character but you just want her to find some peace. Beautiful prose full of pain. Hard to listen to at times. This book will break your heart. Fabulous Mr McGilloway.

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