Detective Vera Stanhope’s team is still grieving after the death in the last book of (reverse spoiler) Holly. Now they have a new member, brash Rosie Bell from Newcastle.
They also have a new case. A worker in a children’s home, Josh Woodburn, was killed in a vacant lot just outside the home. Round about the same time, 14-year-old Chloe Spence, a resident of the home, goes missing. Is she the murderer? A witness? Is her disappearance a coincidence? All they know is that they must find her and soon.
Joshua’s parents appear unaware that he was working at the home. He’s a student, and he’s supposed to be working on his art and film project. Apparently, he told his ex-girlfriend Stella that he was working on an important project.
At Chloe’s school, the staff seem to be more worried about Chloe’s grades and behavior than that her mother has been put into mental care and she herself is in a group home and missing. To Vera, the home looks like it doesn’t have a penny spent on it, and it is understaffed.
In their search for Chloe, the team finds that she liked going to a village in the hills where her grandfather once owned some land and they used to do rough camping. When the team goes to the small camping hut on the property, they find someone—not Chloe but Brad, another resident of the home, dead from an apparent overdose.
The solution to this mystery isn’t really possible to figure out, because vital information is withheld from the reader. Early on, I guessed what Josh’s project might be, sort of, but I couldn’t see how it would lead to murder. Then I more or less forgot about it. Still, Cleeves really rivets you to the page. You have to keep reading.
What? Me Read? 