Every time I read a book in this series I know it’s going to be frighteningly realistic. The crimes, the characters, the lot, all add up to stories that have me hooked, and this one is no exception.
Walking home at night you should be safe, but everyone knows it’s increasingly risky. So when one young woman doesn’t complete the journey and is found dead, on a bit of grass, a murder investigation is got underway.
As a mother, with children about the same age, Detective Lottie Parker is always going to give the investigation her all, she always does.
The team soon identify the girl and find that she had been on an innocent date the night she disappeared.
Or at least on the face of it she had.
When another girl is found dead in similar circumstances the victims begin to look a little less “innocent”
Two things you are Guaranteed with Patricia Gibney books. Firstly they are written from the heart. Every emotion, of every character is carefully crafted and plays out wonderfully on the pages. Secondly the plot is always original, surprising, and most importantly realistic.
I can’t write too much about the plot, the victims, and the person, or persons responsible for the crimes without including huge spoilers.
In a vague way I will say that the young women that are killed are just being young women, and that nobody deserves to be murdered.
But in modern society what is innocent.
It’s a question this book ponders. When does moralistically wrong become illegally wrong.
When does a person cross the line from having fun, to needing the fruits of having fun.
At what point does the empathy of the reader, or the bystander, become negatively judgmental, a luxury a Police Investigator cannot afford to let cloud their investigation.
All of these things Patricia Gibney handles better than most writers.
Lottie Parker has had it rough, her family have put her through the wringer, but no matter what she is still a supportive mother, grandmother, and daughter, faced with all the trials and tribulations of being the “responsible adult” to all of the generations.
The Parker family story is central to these books and although this, and the others, could be read as a standalone, I would highly recommend reading the series to get the full impact.
Print length: 500 pages. Publisher: Bookouture. Audiobook length: 13 hours. Narrator: Michele Moran
nigeladamsbookworm 