Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda Cready. Despite extensive news coverage and dogged investigation into her abduction, the police have uncovered nothing. And as the Indian summer fades, Amanda McCready stays gone - vanished so completely that she seems never to have existed. Then a second child disappears. Confronted with a police force seething with lethal secrets, Kenzie and Gennaro soon discover that those who go looking for the missing may not come back alive.
This is the first book I’ve read in the series, and the only reason I’m going out of order is because I have an ARC of Moonlight Mile, which continues this story, sitting in my TBR pile. The good thing is that enough backstory is filled in for this to be a pretty decent stand-alone novel. In many ways, this is your standard child kidnapping/criminal enterprise story, but there are a few twists and turns along the way that make it stand out. Most of all, I think what holds it apart is the concept of a happy ending not necessarily being the best ending, and that sometimes following the law isn’t the only choice. I’m not sure I agree with how Lehane ends the story, but I understand why he did it. Most of all, I’m looking forward to reading more in this series.
