Child's Play

February 24, 2014
British author Carter’s gripping fourth Det. Insp. Sarah Quinn mystery (after 2013’s Dying Bad) interweaves two crime stories. The first involves the 1960 murder in Moss Pit, Leicestershire, of five-year-old Pauline Bolton by her 10-year-old friend, Susan Bailey. The murder cripples the families of both girls. Pauline’s mother never is able to function again, and subsequently Pauline’s brother is forced into foster care. Pauline’s sister, feeling guilty for not having watched Pauline properly on the day of the murder, later destroys her life with drugs and promiscuous sex. More than 50 years after Pauline’s murder, 16-year-old Caitlin Reynolds is kidnapped on her way home from school in Birmingham. There are no eyewitnesses; Sarah’s long-standing rival, journalist Caroline King, fails to pass on communications from the kidnapper; and Caitlin’s mother and grandmother withhold crucial information. How the two crimes connect will shock most readers.

April 1, 2014
The past meets the present when a child's kidnapping echoes a story from long ago. Nicola Reynolds is shocked when her teenage daughter, Caitlin, doesn't return from school one day in Birmingham, England. To hear it from Nicola, Caitlin can do no wrong, so there's no reason for her to be delayed. Local DI Sarah Quinn is called in to investigate, but even the usually astute detective can't seem to find a reason for the girl's disappearance. That's because Nicola isn't being forthcoming. She's received an email from someone who claims to have snatched Caitlin and warns the worried mother about involving the police. Meanwhile, calculating reporter Caroline King knows something big must be afoot when she gets her own note from the kidnapper. In spite of Quinn's long adversarial relationship with Caroline, the two have formed a mutually beneficial if wary working relationship of late (Dying Bad, 2013), and Quinn must figure out what she can reveal to the reporter and what she might expect in return. As days pass with little headway, Quinn realizes that Nicola may be obscuring key facts about Caitlin's disappearance but can't figure out why the mother would do anything that might get in the way of her daughter's safe return. All the while, the kidnapper continues to up the ante by revealing his motive to Nicola, tying it to shocking facts about her own family's past that she's now forced to face. By cutting back on the biting interplay between the stoic Quinn and the calculating King, Carter loses the most distinctive and effective piece of her procedural formula.

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April 1, 2014

Back in 1960, the English city of Birmingham was home to a horrific child murder case that was pinned on another child, Susan Bailey. Susan was convicted and served time. Flash-forward to the present, and a teenage girl, Caitlin Reynolds, has gone missing. Investigator DI Sarah Quinn finds Caitlin's mother's behavior suspicious; the mother isn't telling Quinn about the threatening phone calls she's receiving. Meanwhile, hotshot reporter Caroline King has received a clue from the kidnapper, and per usual, she's loath to share all she knows with Quinn. Readers can easily figure out how Caitlin's abduction ties in with the old case, but how it will be resolved generates some tension. VERDICT The fourth case (after Dying Bad) for Carter's two divas, the high-achieving detective and the ambitious reporter, isn't the series's strongest outing, since so many characters are unlikable and the kidnapped victim's point of view comes across as strangely flat. That said, it serves as a good connector title since DI Quinn has new challenges awaiting her in the next installment.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
August 1960, Leicestershire, England. Two young girls are playing in the woods. One of them ends up dead. The older girl is accused of killing her little friend and is eventually imprisoned for 25 years. Nearly 50 years later, Leicestershire teen Caitlin Reynolds is kidnapped. Detective Sergeant Sarah Quinn is in charge of the case, but with no clues and no motive, she faces a major challenge. Caitlin's mother is distraught but is clearly hiding something. Sarah's nemesis, news reporter Caroline King, wants in on the case, especially after receiving a threatening message that seems to be from the kidnapper. But why does he tell her to check the 1960 child murder case? As Sarah works against the clock to try to save Caitlin and understand how her kidnapping links to the earlier killing, she finds herself caught in a web of lies that puts her faith in humanity to the test. A gripping but unsettling read for dedicated Anglophile crime fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)