The Lost Witness (A Lena Gamble Novel Book 2)

Someone Saw the Killing . . . Someone knows . . .

For eight months LAPD Detective Lena Gamble has been working only the most mundane cases, her career DOA for embarrassing the chief by exposing the truth behind a series of gruesome murders haunting the city. So when a young woman’s body turns up in Hollywood, sliced and diced and tossed in the trash, Gamble wonders why she got the call.

The victim has no ID and there’s no evidence—not a single clue. Just rumors that someone witnessed the murder and has gone into hiding.

Gamble races to find the witness by profiling the killer. And when she unearths his lair—the knifes, the blood, the dead girl's clothes—she can feel it in her gut: a monster’s loose in the city, and on the payroll of a drug company owned by a depraved corporate bigshot. Worse still, everyone is on the take. And everyone wants the witness in the ground.

With the chief and his crooked minions blocking her every move, with the body count rising and time running out—Gamble fights her way through corruption and outright savagery before making a discovery so shocking it takes her breath away.

Who is the lost witness? And with the killer standing right behind her, will Lena Gamble survive long enough to find out?





PRAISE FOR THE LOST WITNESS

“Scorching. Deliciously twisted. Nothing is what it appears to be. Ellis succeeds masterfully in both playing fair and pulling surprise after surprise in a story that feels like a runaway car plunging down a mountain road full of switchbacks.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Ellis serves up a killer crime tale with riveting characters and relentless twists.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“Ellis’s elaborate puzzle is a nail-biter to the final page. Great LA settings enhance this high-speed thriller. Recommended for all popular collections.”
—Library Journal

“Ellis piles on the Hollywood atmosphere and procedural detail, and the end revelation is expertly timed and genuinely shocking.”
—The Guardian (UK)

PRAISE FOR THE LENA GAMBLE NOVELS

“Los Angeles under a cloud of acrid smoke . . . Robert Ellis’s City of Fire is a gripping, spooky crime novel.”
—The New York Times “Hot List” Pick

“CITY OF FIRE is my kind of crime novel. Gritty, tight and assured. Riding with Detective Lena Gamble through the hills of Los Angeles is something I could get used to. She’s tough, smart, and most of all, she’s real.”
—Michael Connelly

“CITY OF FIRE features a tough but deeply flawed protagonist, a tantalizingly complex plot, fully realized—and realistic—characters, and most of all, a palpable intensity. And if that weren’t enough, the bombshell plot twist at the novel’s conclusion makes this an absolute must read for thriller aficionados.”
—Chicago Tribune

“I just discovered Robert Ellis. This book is terrific.”
—Janet Evanovich, People magazine

“This book is fast, gruesome, and twisted, like a scary Jodie Foster movie. Ellis makes it easy to be terrified.”
—Library Journal

“A complex portrait of the flawed but righteous Lena by Ellis makes this sure-footed police procedural something special.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Robert Ellis’s brisk, complex CITY OF FIRE is hot stuff. Ellis excels at vivid writing and the expert plotting keeps the reader off-kilter … L.A., which is written about so often, seems fresh in the hands of an original storyteller such as Ellis.”
—South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Best Books of the Year

“The story is tight, the characters alive.”
—Publishers Weekly

“CITY OF FIRE begins like a roller coaster, building tension, anxiety, and fear. Then it plunges at full speed, spiraling and twisting through scenes that will have hearts pounding and fingers flying through the pages.”
—Mystery Scene