A thriller is a work of fiction designed to elicit a strong emotional response through suspense and plot twists. Domestic thrillers focus on the home environment, including intimate family relationships and the secrets they conceal.

The novel’s primary focus is on the personal, rather than professional, lives of the characters, and most of the events take place within a single neighborhood. Family relationships take center stage as characters deal with infidelity, loss, and dysfunction. Kubica critiques the modern suburban landscape. The suburban home is typically thought of as a place of refuge. In Kubica’s novel, it becomes a danger zone: Kate and Bea’s home is invaded by construction workers, Carly and Delilah are kept captive within homes, and Bea attacks Meredith at Meredith’s home. Overall, Kubica presents the domestic environment as being just as rife with conflict as the settings found in other thriller genres, such as legal and medical thrillers.

As a thriller, Local Woman Missing employs many literary devices that are hallmarks of the genre. The plot features several red herrings, or clues that seem significant but turn out to be unimportant.