In Bitter Chill

July 20, 2015
In Ward’s underwhelming debut, an unknown woman abducted two eight-year-old Derbyshire girls, Rachel Jones and Sophie Jenkins, while they were walking to school on Jan. 20, 1978. Rachel was found a few hours later, unharmed in the woods, but Sophie was never seen again and the kidnapper never apprehended. More than 30 years later, Sophie’s mother, Yvonne, commits suicide in a hotel room, leading Det. Insp. Francis Sadler and his eager underling, Det. Constable Connie Childs, to reexamine the kidnapping case to see what prompted the woman to kill herself. Meanwhile, Rachel, who still lives in the area and works as a family historian, is adamant that she remembers nothing from the day she was snatched. When another body turns up, that of a former teacher at Rachel and Sophie’s school, the detectives begin to wonder if someone is covering up the tracks from 1978. Ward shows her hand much too early, killing the suspense, and her characters are wooden at best. Agent: Kirsty McLachlan, David Godwin Associates (U.K.).

September 1, 2015
A 36-year-old cold case in a small town in Derbyshire is cracked wide open by the deaths of two women. First, Yvonne Jenkins commits suicide on the anniversary of the day in 1978 when her daughter, Sophie, and Rachel Jones, both eight years old, were abducted on their way to school. Later that day, Rachel made her way out of the nearby woods, with little memory of what had happened, but no trace of Sophie was ever found. Days after the suicide, the body of Penny Lander, who had been a teacher at the girls' school, is found strangled in the same woods. Rachel, now a genealogist in the same town, simply wants to live quietly, but she works with DI Frances Sadler and his team members DS Damian Palmer and DC Connie Childs to eventually uncover long-hidden secrets behind both old and current crimes. Ward, a reviewer of international crime fiction on her blog, Crimepieces, skillfully weaves a compelling plot in this police procedural with a genealogical bent. An accomplished debut by a writer to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)