# 24 Lola is Missing
From a quiet suburb, a little girl goes missing – snatched at night from her own bedroom while her mother was watching TV downstairs.
The police investigate, the distraught mother appeals to the kidnappers on TV, and a “Help Find Lola” page is set up on social media by a friend.
However, no trace of Lola is found, and after half a year or so has passed, it seems like the investigation has reached a dead end.
Enter detective Rachel Prince, sent to pick up where the regular units have left off – it might be a case of international trafficking, which appears to be confirmed when another little girl is kidnapped while playing at a park not far from Lola’s neighbourhood.
As most of us know, the culprits of such crimes are often close to the victim, and with Lola’s parents recently divorced and her Dad having returned her later than agreed once or twice after a day out, he is the most obvious suspect.
And yet, something about Lola’s mother and the way certain “evidence” is presented makes Rachel’s instincts kick in.
How the investigation leads from one dead end to the next, how various suspects behave indeed suspiciously but are cleared eventually, and what actually happened to Lola makes for a rather gripping read.
I shared the detective’s suspicion and was not overly surprised by the solution of the case, but there were enough twists and turns to keep me reading on.
As for the detective, her partner and all the other characters in the story, I must say I did not develop an attachment to any of them; they just weren’t very nice or in any way endearing people – none of them.
Still, like I said, a good read (and a free ebook at that – part of a series starring Rachel Prince).
Of the author, I had never heard before. There is a mini bio about her on goodreads.
This book reminded me of “Jerry’s”: Quirky characters, bizarre happenings, funny dialogue and descriptions.
But unlike Jerry’s, this one was a proper murder mystery.
At a luxury spa somewhere in the English countryside, a man dies in the middle of an aerobics class. Heart failure, of course – everyone is quick to assume natural causes, but soon, suspicions arise that someone had a hand in the sudden death.
Young, ambitious, clever and superbly stylish PC Twitty is sent to “show presence”, but nobody really expects him to solve something that may or may not be a crime.
Twitty goes about his investigation in a bumbling manner and apparently crosses someone who should not have been crossed, for he ends up pushed into the jacuzzi, not drowned but his pride severely injured.
With his motivation to get behind the strange goings-on at the SuperSpa, he refuses to leave the scene, but instead intensifies his investigation, rubbing nearly everyone the wrong way.
But then he finds an unexpected ally, and after initially making for more confusion than before, one by one the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place.
A twist towards the end is followed by another final twist; all very satisfying.
I loved most of the dialogue; the whole style of the book has something of a screwball comedy from the 1940s, only that it was first published in 1986.
A relatively short, funny read if you want to read something that is not your average murder mystery.
To my surprise, I found out that it is Book 4 of 9 in a series called “The Inspector Peckover Mysteries”. Peckover does feature, but not as prominently as Twitty and several other characters.
As for the author, I had never come across him before (I think). He was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, and his Wikipedia entry is here.
(Mine was a free ebook from the Kindle shop, but I liked this picture of the physical book from 1986 better.)
Hello Librarian!
ReplyDeletenot again! I am Saucy Siciliana.
DeleteCiao Francesca!
DeleteI recently finished a good book, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow". It is fiction about video game designers and very different from my usual mysteries but I really enjoyed it. It was recommended by another blogger that I read.
ReplyDeleteI have not heard of that book yet, but since I have my favourite computer game(s) and know some of the people who worked on them personally, it could be quite interesting for me.
DeleteI just can't enjoy reading stories about children who have been snatched - the idea is too horrifying that I can't relax and enjoy the tale. But when you think of the gruesome things that happen in detective stories, I guess that is rather a strange thing to say.
ReplyDeleteMy main horror is when animals are mistreated; I can't deal with that at all. As member of an animal protection association, I get their magazine every two months but am hardly able to read all articles, knowing full well that horrible things are happening all the time (to animals, children, elderly people, women and men everywhere...) - and that's real life, not fiction.
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