Lost Girls (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thriller)

by Angela Marsons

[Leah]

If you have yet to read any of Angela Marsons's D.I. Kim Stone books, you need to stop reading this review right now, and go and buy Silent Scream. Heck, go and buy all four (well buy three and pre-order one) because you will DEVOUR them if you like well-written crime with a kick-ass lead heroine. Seriously. It's been ages since I've been this excited over a crime book, a good old fashioned, find-the-killer crime book because these days it's all about the psychological thriller, with the usually dull and annoying endings. But these books are proper crime books, with proper endings and Lost Girls is the best yet (although I have a feeling I'll be saying that about Play Dead pretty damn quickly).

There are going to be 8 Kim Stone books in total (or hopefully FOR STARTERS?!?! And we can have 8 more?!?!?!) and so far, I am in no way bored of Kim in any way, shape or form. I could genuinely read 16 more Kim Stone books. Lost Girls sees our intrepid detective and her team searching for two missing girls, akin to a case over a year back, where two girls went missing and only one girl returned, and the other presumed dead. The killers/kidnappers try to pit the families against each other and it's up to Kim and co to find the girls before all hell breaks loose, or more children end up dead. And if that's not enough poor Kim is trying to find out who got a kid murdered who was trying to leave a gang. It's fair to say that Kim Stone's life is HECTIC. I'm exhausted for her and I just get to read about her exploits.

What I liked about Lost Girls - and all the other Kim Stone books - is the pacing and the writing, not to mention the characters. Kim Stone needs her own TV show STAT. It would be AMAZING. I can literally picture it, although I have no idea who would play Kim and it would need to be someone who can carry off Kim the way book Kim is, because she's not exactly warm and welcoming. I actually love that about her, she just wants to get the job done, and there's nowt wrong with that at all. The pacing of the book is fantastic. It goes at just the right amount of pace to keep you hooked, unable to put it down, which is a good thing because YAY READING but bad because it can interrupt your sleep. But it's so worth it, and it's like Kim and her team have become family.

It's so good to see the team strengthen - we've had three books now, they're all settling into their roles nicely. Bryant's the cool, calm, collected one, the only one allowed to call Kim on her crap; Stacey's the quiet tech-y one; and Dawson is still an enigma to me. I want to know more about him, but it was nice to see Kim trust him with his own little investigation in Lost Girls. I won't lie, he's damn intriguing. I absolutely loved Lost Girls, the plot was amazing, I always love when families are pitted against each other, even though it's cruel. And I honestly can't big up Angela Marsons enough. She's a rare talent, and deserves every single bit of praise she receives because she's an OUTSTANDING writer.