The Lost
Non-series
Roberta Kray
Soho Constable (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-506-7 (1569475067)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-506-5 (9781569475065)
Publication Date: May 2008
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Private eye Harry Lind doesn't believe in ghosts. Little Grace Harper went missing over twenty years ago, and missing girls can't just reappear - or can they? It takes a brutal murder to make him think again. Reporter Jess Vaughan is convinced that Grace is still alive but she's going to need some help to prove it. As she and Harry begin to unravel an age-old web of deceit and betrayal their discoveries soon put them on a collision course with one of London's most notorious gangsters. The search for the truth is about to lead them into a world where people will kill to preserve their secrets.
Review:
Roberta Kray's third in a series of London gangland mysteries, The Lost, has
private investigator Harry Lind in search of a "ghost", a woman
he's told exists but who is believed to have died years ago as a child.
Harry Lind was once a crackerjack detective on the London Police Force.
On the location of a raid when a bomb explodes, he is injured to the
extent that he could no longer perform his duties in the field. Leaving
the police force, he becomes a private investigator hoping to continue
working in an active environment.
The boss of London's most notorious gang, Ray Stagg, had hired Harry to
look into why his wife, Ellen, is visiting another gang lord in prison,
serving a life's sentence for murder. Stagg is sure he knows some
secret Ellen is hiding. Stagg, too, wants to find anyone with knowledge
of a missing person, his brother-in-law. While chatting with a
reporter, he hears a story about a woman who
bears an uncanny resemblance to a supposedly dead child, but doesn't
think much of it until he realizes that the woman may be Ellen. Is it
possible that Ellen is little Grace, a child that disappeared 20 years
ago and whose badly decomposed body was subsequently discovered? Harry,
together with, Jessica Vaughn, a young, determined reporter who had
always believed that Grace was alive, begin their search for the truth.
They are lured into the world of London's most notorious gangsters who
will kill to preserve their secrets. And while Harry wants to put the
criminals he has unearthed away for life, in doing so he may
bring out secrets of a murder of twenty years ago, which for all may be
best forgotten.
The Lost
is an intriguing mystery until the end, and in some ways even after the
last page has been read. There are a lot of well-drawn characters, some
important and others merely on the periphery, with
interlocking relationships that tend to be confusing at times. Still,
the narrative pulls the reader forward as the plot threads are slowly
unraveled. In the end, though, it is a story of truths and lies,
misplaced love and loyalties, but most of all secrets to be to be
brought to light even if the cost is heavy.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Lost and to Soho Press for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Crime novels by this author ...
The Debt
Carroll & Graf (Hardcover), February 2006
ISBN-10: 0-7867-1699-1 (0786716991)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7867-1699-9 (9780786716999)
The Pact
Carroll & Graf (Hardcover), January 2007
ISBN-10: 0-7867-1902-8 (0786719028)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7867-1902-0 (9780786719020)
The Lost
Soho Constable (Hardcover), May 2008
ISBN-10: 1-56947-506-7 (1569475067)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-506-5 (9781569475065)
Omnimystery keywords for The Lost ...
Location(s) referenced: London.