The Centre

After the fraught game of cat-and-mouse that drove Provocation, Meg Vann continues the InSecurity Triptych in The Centre, where a lost child and kidnapped mother plunges a young security guard into the heart of an investigation where nothing is quite what it seems.

Zilla Bannich is the junior security guard working the local shopping centre, a quiet misfit among the team of older, fatter men. Her boss is incompetent, her days predictable, and her home life a quiet struggle with her mother’s degenerative illness.

Zilla’s learned to keep her head down and avoid undue attention, but when her discovery of a lost child leads to an abducted mother and signs of physical abuse, there’s no avoiding the prying eyes of the police and her colleagues. As inconsistencies and tainted evidence accumulate, and Zilla’s connection to the child’s family is revealed, she becomes embroiled in the investigation … and a prime suspect in the kidnapping of the child’s mother.

As events rush towards their conclusion, Zilla must step up and immerse herself in the tangled threads of the investigation, working to ensure that child, mother, and Zilla herself are protected from the looming threat of angry men, corrupt systems, and the family secrets capable of ripping her sleepy suburban community apart.

For fans of Claire Mackintosh, CL Taylor, and Gillian Flynn, The Centre is the second book in the InSecurity Triptych — fast-paced and provocative psychological thrillers you can read in a single sitting.