A page turner that allows you to imagine a parallel life, who you might be and whether you could really cope in a new life without any links to the old, Gillian McAllister’s How to Disappear is escapism on every level. A book to submerge yourself into and leave the real world behind, a book about leaving the world you know behind, this is the tale of a family, the consequences of a horrible crime and the limits of witness protection. It’s about loyalty, identity, and how far you would to support and defend your children.
McAllister acknowledges how difficult it is to research witness protection and therefore to be confident of the authenticity of the experience she fictionalises but the world she has built is – for a reader who remembers the cases of the James Bulger, or more recently Ched Evans – compelling.
[Reviewed for FOLIO by Zoe]