2 years after she went missing the body of Ava Sawyer is found buried in the grounds of the Garden Centre she disappeared from during a birthday party.
DI Natalie Wood and her small team are tasked with finding answers the original team to investigate the disappearance didn’t.
But this is no ordinary missing persons/murder investigation. Now that the body has been found it acts as a catalyst for more crimes. More of the girls from the party start to get killed and are left posed in public places.
The investigation very much becomes a race against time.
The team have to find a killer. There are so many suspects, each one looking like they could be the killer, but each of them ruled out as suspects.
Have the team missed the killer?
Natalie already blames herself for one child abduction and murder case, she worked on, being tragically unsuccessful. She wasn’t the boss on that investigation, but she is on this one.
Has she learnt from others mistakes?
The last case affected her mentally and emotionally. Can she hold it together through this case?
The characters in this book are just what you would expect to find in any police team. DI Wood is struggling to balance her work and personal life. How can she try to keep her marriage going and still conduct such a high profile and emotional case.
Her team are made up of a mix of characters who it are easy to associate with and I’m sure we will get to know as the series progresses. There are friendships and there is conflict, just like the real world.
The best thing about this story is the realism. Carol Wyer hits so many nails on the head with the observations she makes.
She brings to life the frustrations of a real investigation.
The amount of facts that come flooding in and need sorting.
Deciding on what takes priority, and the worry that the decision was wrong.
When is it right to send your team home for rest, when every minute is so vital and may literally mean the difference between life and death.
There is one passage in the book when Natalie is struck by the normality of ongoing life after a traumatic incident.
In my career the thing that always used to get into my head was the disrupted normality. A terrible fire in a bedroom that had claimed lives, yet breakfast places set in the unaffected kitchen downstairs. School coats, which would never be worn again, hanging over the backs of chairs.
Not many authors consider this, and even less describe the feelings and emotions so well. It is only a small passage in the book, but it shows the consideration that has been put into it.
This is the first book in a new series. I think it’s going to be stunning.
Pages: 316
Publisher: Bookouture
Publishing Date: 27th September 2018.
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