Synopsis:

Jane’s daughter is a good girl. What is she hiding?

When thirteen-year-old Savannah Hopkins doesn’t come straight home from school, as she always does, her mother Jane immediately raises the alarm.

Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward whose daughter Leigh is the same age as Savannah. Soon Natalie’s worst fears are confirmed when the teenager’s broken body is found in nearby shrubland.

Evidence points towards a local recluse, but just as the net is closing around him, one of Savannah’s friends, Harriet, is reported missing.

As Natalie delves into the lives of both girls, she soon discovers a sinister video on their phones, daring the girls to disappear from their families for 48 hours.

But Natalie isn’t quick enough for this killer, and she is devastated to find Harriet’s body on a fly tip a day later.

Caught up in the case, she takes her eye off her own daughter and when Leigh goes missing after school she knows she must be in terrible danger. The clock is ticking for Natalie. Can she catch this killer before her little girl becomes the next victim?

This is the third book in the Detective Natalie Ward series and I’m always glad that the author is some kind of caffeine fuelled powerhouse (I’m assuming caffeine here) that is releasing these books quite soon after each other, not only that but the audiobook is released on the same day as the print so I don’t have to torture myself for long after I see the front cover flirting with me on NetGalley. As soon as the audio is released, I like to sit down and let the talented Diana Croft read me a story. Her characterisations are out of this world and I’ve said it before, but it really is like listening to a full radio play cast.

This story has another strong storyline from the author, though this time the case that Natalie is working on gets a little closer to home than usual as the victims of an apparent serial killer are all teenage girls the same age as her own daughter.
Natalie has to balance this distressing case with ever-present budget cuts in the police and her own less-than-satisfying home life, the problems she’s experiencing are very relatable and realistic which makes it all the more tense.

I don’t want to give away any of the plot so I’ll just go on to say that Wyer’s writing style really is perfect. I’m just coming out the other side of a 4 series BBC Line of Duty (police conspiracy drama) Netflix binge and this book feels just as sleek and descriptive as if I was watching it on a screen. I’m attributing this entirely to the author’s writing talents and not to my massively overdoing it with my Netflix account.

If you want a realistic and suspenseful police investigation story – get this in your brain immediately.