Little Child GoneAbout the Book
The wind from the storm outside blows through the house, making Nikki’s eyes sting. The secret room is hidden behind a wardrobe in the dusty, abandoned living room. A light flickers to reveal a dark stain on the floor, and two sets of fragile bones…
Standing in the old farmhouse, Special Agent Nikki Hunt holds her breath as the smell of bleach overwhelms her. She can’t take her eyes off the blue baby toys scattered around the floor as her team examine the remains. A housekeeper and her three children disappeared from the property ten years ago. Do the bones belong to two of them? Did the other two survive?
But before Nikki has a chance to investigate further, she receives a panicked call from the local sheriff begging for her help: fourteen-year-old Taylor Hall has gone missing. In the boy’s grand family home, Nikki finds his mother and father utterly distraught, but there are whispers about his mother’s drinking habit. Despite the younger children’s rosy cheeks, and the plates of homemade fudge, is this family hiding secrets?
While digging into Taylor’s life, Nikki spots a crumpled note sticking out of his locker at school. Her finger traces the exact date the housekeeper went missing from the old farmhouse, and a name: “Bailey”. Is this Taylor? As a child, did he survive what happened all those years ago? Or is someone playing a cruel game with Nikki?
The truth about Taylor’s real family is deadlier than Nikki could imagine, and he will have to dig deeper than ever before to save him. Can she unravel the terrible events of the past and protect more than one innocent life before her time runs out?
My Review
I really love this series. While this book was mainly all business, I loved we got a moment of personal life with Nikki and her daughter’s birthday party.
This one is a twofer as Nikki investigates both a cold case and a current case. Her and her team work tirelessly to solve both cases. I really liked how seamlessly Nikki and her team moved between the two cases and it never felt that one was being prioritized over the other.
The cases are complex and layered and there were a lot of characters, which in a crime novel, that means a lot of potential suspects. While the pace is quick, I still had a lot of time to try and solve the case before the team and it kept me guessing. Since I always end up suspecting everyone, I have always had the right answer at some point, but I was never seriously on the right trail. And while I always want to guess it first, I give kudos to the author for keeping me in the dark.
This has a little bit of a dark subject matter, but it never felt too heavy or more so than other crime novels. The author weaves it in in a respectful way.
If you haven’t read any of this series, but love crime novels, this is a great one to start with. But any in the series is a good choice. It’s book 10 so you have plenty of choices. This is one of my favorite police series.
Author Bio
Stacy Green is a USA Today best-selling author of more than a dozen mysteries and thrillers. Her books include the award-winning Lucy Kendall series, the Cage Foster series, and the USA Today best-selling Nikki Hunt series. Stacy has bachelor’s degrees in Journalism/Mass Communication and Sociology from Drake University. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America.
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