The Missing Girls by Carol Wyer

There are shades of The Silence Of The Lambs about this book - and that is not a criticism, honestly.  I think it is the use of a sealed room and night vision goggles with a very odd protagonist who stalks and tortures in the dark that did it for me - Jame Gumb all over it.  To be honest The Silence Of The Lambs is one of those books that has to rank as a favourite because I have read it so often so any comparison to it has to be good.  Don't be misled by this comparison though, The Missing Girls is a long way from Richard Harris's book not only in setting but in tone and ultimate protagonist.

Again, the beauty of the book is in the sheer mundanity and the hard slog of investigating a case.  I love Robyn Carter and her team, we still know so little about Robyn, Anna, Mitz and the satellite to this core triumvirate that they are becoming a little bit of a mystery in and of themselves.  The story is all about the crimes being perpetrated and how the little clues lead to grander thoughts which lead to evidence; when you get a little insight in to one of the characters it is like a little jewel glowing in the detritus (that said I am getting a little irked by the constant references to Robyn's dead partner - but now I know why he has been such a large presence - no I'm not telling READ IT!).

Unusually for the genre, both o paper and on the screen, the usual formula of arrest someone, find out they didn't do it and then arrest the least likely suspect because of a gut feeling and watch them crumble in to full and frank confession under interrogation.  There are plenty of red herrings, false starts and dead ends in the story - not least from the upper echelons of the force who, quite reasonably, want an end to the mystery of the girl in the trunk - as more evidence comes to light it appears she may not be the only one and Robyn's battle to get them to take the possible links to other Missing Girls seriously is well thought out and feels realistic.  The team's frustration seeps of the page and they cover the same ground endlessly, looking for some small thing they missed or that spark of inspiration that will lead them to something that will throw the case wide open.

This is a well thought through book that has plenty of character and wonderfully twisting plot that keeps you reading long after you should be sleeping.  The coverage of online bullying and the sheer nastiness of schooldays is well covered and burns with realism which makes it quite uncomfortable at times.  For me the snatches of investigative procedure just ratchet the tension up as you feel their frustration at having so little to go on and the sonorous tick of the clock wending it's way to another murder - deliciously tense.

I am looking forward to the next in the series which is actually quite unusual for me as I oftentimes find as a series moves on the things that drew me to it in the first place start to fall away and it all becomes a little rote.  Carol Wyer has managed to evade this so far and I hope she continues to do so!