Review: THE GIRL WHO WAS TAKEN, Charlie Donlea

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Kensington
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 25, 2017
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1496701003
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1496701008 

Synopsis (publisher)

Charlie Donlea, one of the most original new voices in suspense, returns with a haunting novel, laden with twists and high tension, about two abducted girls—one who returns, one who doesn’t—and the forensics expert searching for answers.

Nicole Cutty and Megan McDonald are both high school seniors in the small town of Emerson Bay, North Carolina. When they disappear from a beach party one warm summer night, police launch a massive search. No clues are found, and hope is almost lost until Megan miraculously surfaces after escaping from a bunker deep in the woods.

A year later, the bestselling account of her ordeal has turned Megan from local hero to national celebrity. It’s a triumphant, inspiring story, except for one inconvenient detail: Nicole is still missing. Nicole’s older sister Livia, a fellow in forensic pathology, expects that one day soon Nicole’s body will be found, and it will be up to someone like Livia to analyze the evidence and finally determine her sister’s fate. Instead, the first clue to Nicole’s disappearance comes from another body that shows up in Livia’s morgue—that of a young man connected to Nicole’s past. Livia reaches out to Megan for help, hoping to learn more about the night the two were taken. Other girls have gone missing too, and Livia is increasingly certain the cases are connected.

But Megan knows more than she revealed in her blockbuster book. Flashes of memory are coming together, pointing to something darker and more monstrous than her chilling memoir describes. And the deeper she and Livia dig, the more they realize that sometimes true terror lies in finding exactly what you’ve been looking for.   

 My Take

 A very noir two-stranded story - one strand dealing with girls who have disappeared, some of whom  have returned, and the other strand about what is involved in the training of a pathologist. Livia Cutty, pathologist in training, has won an exacting fellowship. In a year she will perform at least 250 autopsies, and every day she is expecting that the body on her slab could end up being her missing sister Nicole.

The final solution comes out of left field. A very gripping read. 

My rating: 4.6 

I have also read 4.6, THE WOMAN IN DARKNESS

Review: DON’T BELIEVE IT, Charlie Donlea

 This is the second book that I’ve read by this author and I’m certainly on the alert for me.

Grace Sebold was convicted 10 years ago by a local jury of the murder of her boyfriend at Sugar Beach. 

Filmmaker Sidney Ryan makes the case the focal point of a 10 week true crime television series which goes over all known evidence and investigates things with new intensity. The television audience gets the impression that they are learning things almost as the investigator discovers them. 

The tv series is immensely popular, increasingly in the size of the audience with each episode. And just as you think Grace’s innocence has been proved, new accusations come to light.

Really a roller coaster ride.

My rating: 4.8

Review: THE WOMAN IN DARKNESS, Charlie Donlea

• 
  this edition published by Penguin Australia 2019
• made available by my local library
  
• ISBN 978-0-14379-515-5
• 291 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

Charlie Donlea's chilling new suspense thriller is the story of two women, separated by forty years, yet both inextricably linked by a series of horrific murders that took place in 1979.

"She wondered if the mysterious woman had chosen darkness. Or if darkness had chosen her."

As a forensic reconstructionist, Rory Moore sheds light on cold-case homicides by piecing together details others fail to see. And while cleaning out her late father’s law office, she takes a call that plunges her into a forty-year-old mystery.

In the summer of 1979, five Chicago women went missing. The predator, nicknamed The Thief, left no bodies and no clues behind - until police received a package from a mysterious woman named Angela Mitchell, which uncovered his identity. But before police could question her, Angela disappeared.

Forty years later, The Thief is about to be paroled for Angela’s murder – the only killing the DA could pin on him. But a cryptic file found in her father’s office suggests to Rory there is more to the case than anyone knew.

Soon Rory is helplessly entangled in the enigma of Angela Mitchell and what happened to her. Drawing connections between the past and present, she uncovers dark truths about the reclusive woman, her own father, and the man called The Thief.

But not even Rory is prepared for the terrifying secrets about to emerge…

My Take

When Rory Moore's father dies she is surprised to learn that for the last 40 years he has been providing services for The Thief, suspected of being a serial killer. Now The Thief is about to be paroled, 20 years early, and Rory's father was to have managed the conditions of his release. He appears to be a reformed character, but is he?

He was convicted of killing his wife but no body has ever been found, and it is only his wife's investigations that link Thomas Mitchell to the other deaths. 

Rory is drawn into investigating what happened to Angela Miller, and her research reveals some surprises.

This novel leads down some surprising paths: a very engaging read.

This certainly won't be the last book I read by this author.

(BTW I was surprised to find that the author is male)

My rating: 4.6

About the author

Charlie Donlea is a USA Today bestselling author who has been praised as a 'bold new writer…on his way to becoming a major figure in the world of suspense' (Publishers Weekly). He was born and raised in Chicago, where he continues to live with his wife and two young children. He is the author of Summit Lake, The Girl Who Was Taken, Don't Believe It, The Woman in Darkness (published elsewhere as Some Choose Darkness) and The Suicide House.