The girl is sitting upright, her dark brown hair arranged over her shoulders and her blue, blue eyes staring into the distance. She looks almost peaceful. But her gaze is vacant, and her skin is cold…

When Detective Jackie Cooke is called to the murder scene, she is shocked by what she sees. Missing teenager Chloe Smedley has finally been found – her body left in a cold back yard, carefully posed with her bright blue eyes still open. Jackie lays a protective hand on the baby in her belly, and vows to find the brutal monster who stole Chloe’s future.

When Jackie breaks the news to Chloe’s heartbroken mother, she understands the woman’s cries only too well. Her own brother went missing as a child, the case never solved. Determined to get justice for Chloe and her family, Jackie sets to work, finding footage of the girl waving at someone the day she disappeared. Did Chloe know her killer?

But then a second body is found on the side of a busy motorway, lit up by passing cars. The only link with Chloe is the disturbing way the victim has been posed, and Jackie is convinced she is searching for a dangerous predator. Someone has been hunting missing and vulnerable people for decades, and only Jackie seems to see that they were never lost. They were taken.

Jackie’s boss refuses to believe a serial killer is on the loose and threatens to take her off the case. But then Jackie returns home to find a brightly coloured bracelet on her kitchen counter and her blood turns cold. It’s the same one her brother was wearing when he vanished. Could his disappearance be connected to the murders? Jackie will stop at nothing to catch her killer… unless he finds her first…

My thanks to Bookouture for my review copy and to Sarah Hardy for the opportunity to host this leg of The Lost Ones blog tour.

There are some authors I always enjoy reading. If you look back over my past reviews you will see I have read (and always enjoyed) many books written by Marnie Riches – she seems to nail that perfect balance of pacing, humour, darkess (oh what darkness) and tension packed thrills. Anticipation ahead of reading The Lost Ones was high. I was not disappointed.

The Lost Ones is the first in a new series which features Detective Jackson (Jackie) Cooke and we first meet her in a state of some discomfort, very pregnant, at a murder scene and without her regular partner who has finally secured a long-overdue holiday. The murder is a particularly nasty one; a young girl has been left posed in a location where she will be easily found. Her body has been mutilated and some of her limbs are missing.

Jackie cannot help but be reminded of her own brother who she lost many years earlier when he vanished when he and Jackie were both children. Her brother never returned and Jackie’s mother and her often absent father struggled on with a constant feeling of loss and heartbreak. The family dynamic is fractious and Jackie’s own family are seemingly also chaotic. She has many plates spinning in her home life and with a third child, their happy accident, on the way there seems no let up.

The murder investigation takes the majority of the story and it’s a great police procedural – even if the team are not the best at following orders. Jackie’s boss (and apparent nemesis) wants to bench her but is struggling to cover her position. Her colleagues are too busy to give the case the attention Jackie thinks it needs and she does not rate their ability to investigate this unusual murder properly.

We see Jackie covertly trying to keep working on the murder case and enlisting some willing colleagues to support her. An astute reader will definitely have that impending feeling of something about to go badly wrong, it certainly kept me reading!

I read The Lost Ones in two sittings, didn’t want to stop as there was always something in the story which kept me pushing through “one more chapter”. It’s got more than a few dark moments as I have come to expect (and look forward to) when I read Marnie’s books and this new cast of characters were wonderfully realised as I felt I had been reading about them for more than one book.

The Lost Ones is out now and I cannot think of a single reason as to why you shouldn’t buy a copy immediately.

The Lost Ones is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09TWCJ33M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0