How to Disappear

How to Disappear opens when fifteen-year-old Zara testifies as "Girl A" at the trial of two teenage boys she witnessed murdering a homeless man a year earlier. When the boys are acquitted and Zara's real identity leaks online, she becomes a target, and her mother Lauren is forced into an impossible decision: enter witness protection and give up their entire lives, including Lauren's marriage, to keep Zara safe.

Gillian McAllister builds the novel around the mechanics and psychological toll of disappearing — new names, a new town, the constant vigilance required to avoid any digital trace back to who they used to be. The tension comes less from a single chase than from the accumulation of small risks: a stray text, a social media like, a familiar face recognized at the wrong moment.

It's a domestic thriller about the cost of protecting a child, told through the practical and emotional reality of erasing a life and building another one under constant threat of discovery.