I have to say that this book has really torn me.
The story is brilliant, the crime is committed in a way, and for reasons, I have never come across before.
Ten years apart two girls are abducted and held captive by someone for weeks. Then mysteriously they are found apparently unharmed their clothes cleaned and pressed, and saying there captive had treated them well.
When newly promoted DI Edina (Ed) Ogborne is transferred from the Met, under a cloud, to Canterbury she struggles to integrate into the small CID team.
The most recent disappearance is her first case and as she struggles with the case, she also struggles with her team and her social life.
With the investigation going nowhere it’s a frustration when a local journalist gets a break in the case and publishes the story without conferring with the Police, another “X” in the column for Jo from her new boss.
The investigations continue and at least one other girl is taken, but why, and why return them unharmed and in apparent good health.
Canterbury is a small City and everybody seems to know everybody and there business. The investigation has a small town feeling in a small City.
To me this is where there is a problem with the story. There is never any urgency in the investigation. A series of kidnappings of teenage girls and there’s just a team of 4 looking at it almost on a 9-5 basis. With the SIO taking time out to go for meals and to fraternise with the locals, something she may come to regret
As much as I liked the story there were too many times when I thought “no, that would never happen”, or “stop faffing about and get on with the investigation”
There are some peripheral characters that take the reader down dead ends, and as entertaining as they are, I struggled to understand why some things happen in the story. Unless this is the building block for a series and the characters are going to reappear.
Would I read them if they did?
Yes, as frustrating as it was in places I actually really enjoyed the story.
Pages: 355
Publisher: Avon
Available now.
nigeladamsbookworm 