Blessing of the Lost Girls
From J. A. Jance’s New York Times bestselling Brady and Walker novels, federal investigator Dan Pardee, Brandon Walker’s son-in-law, crosses paths with Sheriff Joanna Brady as he traces the bloody path of a merciless serial killer across the Southwest in this intense thriller. Driven by a compulsion that challenges his self-control, the man calling himself Charles Milton prowls the rodeo circuit, hunting young women. He chooses those he believes are the most vulnerable, wandering alone and distracted, before he strikes. For years, he has been meticulous in his methods, abducting, murdering, and disposing his victims while leaving no evidence of his crimes—or their identities—behind. Indigenous women have become his target of choice, knowing law enforcement’s history of ignoring their disappearances. A cold case has just been assigned to Dan Pardee, a field officer with the newly formed Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Task Force. Rosa Rios, a young woman of Apache descent and one-time rodeo star, vanished three years ago. Human remains, a homicide victim burned beyond recognition, were discovered in Cochise County around the time she went missing. They have finally been confirmed to be Rosa. With Sheriff Joanna Brady’s help, Dan is determined to reopen the case and bring long-awaited justice to Rosa’s family. As the orphaned son of a murdered indigenous woman, he feels an even greater, personal obligation to capture this killer. Joanna’s daughter Jennifer is also taking a personal interest in this case, having known Rosa from her own amateur rodeo days. Now a criminal justice major, she’s unofficially joining the investigation. And as it becomes clear that Rosa was just one victim of a serial killer, both Jennifer and Dan know they’re running out of time to catch an elusive predator who’s proven capable of getting away with murder.
Lost Girls
When Felicity saw her face on a missing person poster she wasn't afraid because she would be kidnapped. She was afraid because she would be okay with it. At 24-years-old, Felicity Walker's seemingly average life was anything but that. She had endured enough heartache and life-altering events for one lifetime. With the help of Heather, her best friend, Felicity was able to get a grip on the mental health issues that kept her captive for years. All of her healing went out the window when Felicity strayed off the path during her morning run and found herself at an abandoned campsite. There, she found herself surrounded by missing person posters. The most unsettling of them all was the poster that wore her name and that day's date. After going to the police, further investigations were halted as the police thought it was solved. Unfortunately for Felicity's trusting disposition, it was far from closed. Lost Girls is the long sought-after novel for the individual who wants to read, but has twenty-five hours worth of work to do in one day. It's fast-paced, continuously developing plot makes for the perfect weekend read. The relatively short, highly detailed chapters make it possible to be transported to a world where the lines between who you can and can't trust are blurred while on your lunch break, waiting for a doctor's appointment, or while the kids take a nap. If you're looking for a novel full of mystery, suspense, and endless thrills that gets you hooked in t he first chapter, Lost Girls is the novel for you.
The Lost Girls
'Beautifully written, intense.' LISA BALLANTYNE 'A thrilling, emotive and heartfelt mystery.' CHRIS WHITAKER FROM THE AUTHOR OF BESTSELLING DEBUT THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT Lost, she narrowly escaped disaster. Beth is desperate to return to normality. After a years-long ordeal, her daughter is finally home and safe. But Carmel has questions she can't ignore about the cult that kidnapped her, and about the preacher who gave her another girl's name. Found, she must survive a miracle. Digging into her past, Carmel uncovers secrets which suggest that she wasn't the only lost girl - and which puts her in danger all over again. While her mother struggles to salvage the safety they've only just found, Carmel tries to come to terms with who she has become. One question, a mystery at the heart of her disappearance as a child, haunts her: What happened to the other lost girls? 'As affirming as it is devastating.' CAILEAN STEED 'Reads like a shiver down the spine.' ANNA BAILEY 'As ever, Kate's prose is beautiful and immersive.' REBECCA WHITNEY Praise for Kate Hamer: 'Deliciously dark.' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'Keeps the reader turning pages at a frantic clip.' CELESTE NG 'Her writing is as vivid, nasty and beautiful as a bruise.' METRO **Read the start of Carmel and Beth's story in The Girl in the Red Coat - available now!**
THREE LOST GIRLS
When she was seven years old, young Alice Liddell went gathering mushrooms in the woods. After finding several beneath an ancient oak, she popped one into her mouth. An hour later, a large, anthropomorphic rabbit came along, wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, complaining about being late for some appointment. Alice later remembered following it down a dark hole... Thus, Alice began learning early on about the psychoactive effects of particular plants and fungi. Now, 40 years later, psychiatrist Dr. Alice Liddell-Dodgson takes on two nine-year old patients who have had remarkably similar experiences. One is the daughter of a London investment banker. The other is being raised by her aunt and uncle on a wheat farm in rural Kansas. Wendy Moira Angela Darling and Dorothy Gale are as different as two young girls can be, but they – as well as Dr. Liddell-Dodgson – have all experienced what she terms as ‘delusional psychosis.’ After a year of ‘Doctor Alice’s’ treatment and counseling, Wendy and Dorothy have accepted that their experiences in ‘Neverland’ and the ‘Kingdom of Oz’ were nothing more than visions, the product of extreme physical and emotional trauma – little different from Dr. Liddell-Dodgson’s own girlhood delusions of ‘Wonderland.’ But were they delusions? What are the odd slippers Dorothy was found wearing the morning after a cyclone? Where did they come from and why does she refuse to take them off? And why does Wendy’s mother speak so strangely about old Celtic folk legends? What do they have to do with a buccaneer ancestor and a Lost Cause of two centuries ago? Even Dr. Alice, a woman who has dedicated her life to science, finds herself confronting disturbing reminders of a manic-depressive haberdasher and a dangerously psychopathic monarch with a fetish for decapitation...
The Lost Girls
A New York Times bestseller, Allison Brennan's The Lost Girls features FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid turning up the heat on a cold case... Photojournalist Siobhan Walsh has been searching for two sisters who disappeared two years ago in Mexico, so when she receives a call from a priest in Texas about an abandoned baby holding a locket with her name, she calls her friends in the FBI for help. The infant obviously belongs to one of the sisters, but how did she end up in Texas? And why did she abandon her newborn? “Can’t-put-it-down suspense.”—Fresh Fiction In The Lost Girls, Lucy Kincaid and her mentor, Supervisory Special Agent Noah Armstrong, track the missing girls and uncover a human-trafficking organization that leads to a seedy underworld in which nothing is as it seems. The bad guys seem to stay two steps ahead of them, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and Lucy with more questions than answers. “Fascinating...Buckle up and brace yourself.”—Sandra Brown Meanwhile Lucy’s fiance Sean Rogan has a crisis of his own. An old girlfriend returns with shocking news: not only does Sean have a son, but Jesse and his step-father have disappeared. The last thing Sean wants to do is leave Lucy when she’s investigating a horrific case, but his son is in grave danger. Torn between an impossible choice, he makes a decision that has far-reaching consequences for Sean, Lucy, and everything they hold dear. “COMPELLING AND COMPLEX ...BRENNAN [IS] A MASTER.” —Associated Press
