The Missing Girls by Carol Wyer #BookReview

What’s it about?

One girl found dead. Another girl gone…

Long shadows danced on the tin walls. Inside the trunk lay Carrie Miller, wrapped in plastic, arms folded across her ribcage, lips sealed tight forever…

When, a girl’s body is found at a Midlands storage unit, it is too decomposed for Detective Robyn Carter to read the signs left by the killer.

No one knows the woman in blue who rented the unit; her hire van can’t be traced. But as the leads run dry another body is uncovered. This time the killer’s distinctive mark is plain to see, and matching scratches on the first victim’s skeleton make Robyn suspect she’s searching for a serial killer.

As Robyn closes in on the killer’s shocking hunting ground, another girl goes missing, and this time it’s someone close to her own heart.

Robyn can’t lose another loved one. Can she find the sickest individual she has ever faced, before it’s too late?

Review

This is the third novel already where DI Robyn Carter investigates a case, and now I’m more certain than ever that this is a series to follow with each new book she publishes. I liked the second novel but I do feel this one’s stronger, with a very good plotline and a real motive. She scores high points in my books! Robyn and her team, Mitz and Anna, Ross and even Shearer are also all really starting to grow on me and it was a warm welcome to see them back.

I’m not going into the plot because there really isn’t much to share except that it’s all a big mystery, you don’t know who and you don’t know why and Robyn really doesn’t have a lot to go on. It’ll take great skill to get on the right path that will give her an inkling of who it is and until the motive slowly and carefully comes into the picture, but skill is something Robyn (and the author) possesses in oodles.

A few details that I want to highlight this time which makes me really love this series and this novel so much: I like how fully detailed Robyn and the pathologist’s findings are described. Some people don’t enjoy descriptions like this but I do, it’s like standing next to a body yourself at that moment, experiencing everything in that moment at the same time as the detective and it satisfies that need that I’m feeling to know and learn more about what fascinates me. I also really enjoy Robyn’s personality in general and I continue to admire and like how she goes through the investigation step by step, the way that Robyn keeps control of all the different leads she’s working on. She makes it very organised by using post-its, by the way she talks about it, by recapitulating her findings from time to time and that works really great to keep up myself and get a clear image of it in my head as well where we’re at, even if it’s nowhere at that time. I appreciate this writing, keeping it a steady pace and never letting the investigation run in chaos, all over the place. She’s gently leading me towards a motive, a person who might be responsible for all this. It’s like a mist before my eyes and she makes the sky clear up gently and slowly.

She didn’t let me down, there were a few unexpected twists and turns while I was racing towards the big reveal of the killer’s identity but it wasn’t that which made me audibly gasp, it was another sort of twist and turn that got me even more excited than unmasking the killer this time. The ending leaves much to the imagination and I’m very impatient to see what’ll happen next. What a great move, and also what a tease! I can’t wait for book nr. 4!

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

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