Title:The Stolen Girls
Author:Patricia Gibney
Series:Detective Lottie Parker, #2
Published:July 2017, Bookouture
Format:ARC E-copy, 452 pages
Source:Netgalley via Publisher
The young woman standing on Lottie’s step was a stranger. She was
clutching the hand of a young boy. ‘Help me,’ she said to Lottie.
‘Please help me.’
One Monday morning, the body of a young pregnant woman is found. The same day, a mother and her son visit the house of Detective Lottie Parker, begging for help to find a lost friend.
Could this be the same girl?
When
a second victim is discovered by the same man, with the murder bearing
all the same hallmarks as the first, Lottie needs to work fast to
discover how else the two were linked. Then two more girls go missing.Detective
Lottie Parker is a woman on the edge, haunted by her tragic past and
struggling to keep her family together through difficult times. Can she
fight her own demons and catch the killer before he claims another
victim?
My thoughts:As soon as I had read the first book in Patricia Gibney’s Detective Lottie Parker series, I knew I was going to be a fan – I was hooked right away and couldn’t wait for the next book to come out. Well, here it is, a few days before the 3rd book is due out, and I finally finished reading the 2nd one…not because I didn’t like it, quite the contrary, but there are just too many good books out there! But let me tell you – if you like a good crime thriller with a kick-*ss detective, this series is for you!
Once again, I found myself completely engaged in this book and despite the length – this book is quite a chunkster, I found myself frantically flipping through the pages, eager to see what was going to happen next. I will say, this book deals with some pretty tough topics – sex trafficking and organ harvesting and self-harm, but it doesn’t dwell on them, if you know what I mean. They are major parts of the story-line, and the self-harm part actually hits a bit close to home for Lottie, but they are well-balanced with everything else that is going on.
I am a huge fan of series, and I say this quite often, but I will say it again here – I really think it’s important that you go into this story having read the first book. There are events that happened in that prior book whose threads are still being picked up in this current story. That’s not to say that Patricia Gibney doesn’t give a little background in this book to help you out or refresh your memory, but you don’t get the full effect/impact unless you’ve read that book.
I really like how as much as this is a police procedural/crime fiction book, it has that human side to it where we see just how vulnerable Lottie is, how she is struggling as a single mom, how her kids are handling things, or not handling things, as the case may be. Lottie is doing her best to try to juggle all this and of course things slide, but at what cost? Who suffers the most – her kids or her job or herself?
This book pulls you in and you are not only swept up in the case and the action, but also into Lottie’s family life. There are some big developments with Lottie’s kids and I’m curious to see how that all plays out in the next book. These teenagers are sure giving Lottie a run for her money, that’s for sure! And there’s still Boyd, hanging in the wind. His wife/ex-wife (I wasn’t exactly clear on this point!) shows up in this book and the jealousy in Lottie is quite humorous…she won’t admit she wants anything with Boyd, yet she doesn’t want him to have anyone else? Hmmm!
This series is so good and I cannot wait to pick up the next book to see not only what case Lottie will find herself and her team mixed up in, but also what happens with her family. This is the type of read that no matter how many pages there are in the book, you just can’t help but fly through them…but then you are disappointed when you reach the end, because you have to wait until the next one releases. Hopefully, this is a long series!
Books in this series:
- The Missing Ones
- The Stolen Girls
- The Lost Child – due out 10.27.17
