Lost in the Jungle by Marja West and Jurgen Snoeren - Review

This book is about two young women, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, who went to Panama to work in a Spanish language school, and went for a hike on the 1st of April 2014. They didn't return, and a search party got underway a couple of days later. No trace was found of the women, but in June of that year their backpack was found, containing their phones and Lisanne's camera. Phone records showed that both phones had been used for several days after their disappearance, and on the camera were photos of the hike, where both girls seem fine on April 1st, but then there are a bunch of creepy photos taken a week later, in the dark. In August 2014 several bones were found which were found to belong to both Lisanne and Kris, but theories have obviously abounded ever since about what happened, why the hike went so wrong, and about if one or both of them survived until over a week later - hence why their phones were being switched on to try to connect to emergency services. It's one of those unsolved cases that the internet loves - and that's how I found it, back in 2018, down a Reddit rabbit hole. There was a really good series about the case on The Daily Beast but some of it seems to have now been deleted, but there's a decent round up here. 

So when I heard about this book I wasn't sure if I needed to read it, because I do know quite a lot about the case. But I decided to buy it anyway, partly to support the authors financially. I started reading it on holiday but got quite scared again (the nighttime photos are truly terrifying!) so put it down and read Dean Atta instead. However, I only had a little bit left, so I read the rest of it on holiday and on the plane on the way home, and finished it while on the plane. I think I did know about 70% of the book, but there was some info that was new to me, and it set the record straight on a few things for me, so that was good. The first part of the book has its problems with grammar, which can make it hard to read in places, but that seemed to improve in the second half. There was also a portion with the Panamanian head of the investigation. She was heavily criticised for 'bungling' the investigation, but I really appreciated hearing her side of the story and about how she was left permanently injured from her time searching for the girls. 

In all, I would say only read this if you already care about the case. I did, so I liked it.