SOMEONE YOU KNOW: A LUCY BLACK NOVEL by BRIAN MCGILLOWAY

I had read another book about DS Lucy Black and found her a heroine I could care about.  Her father has Alzheimer's and has had to be institutionalized.  She has learned previously that he had an affair with a teenage girl years ago so her feelings about him haunt her life.  She is still living in his house, a less than ideal situation which produces nightmares.

In the Prologue we see a young girl off to photo day at school.  She's 14 year old Annie Marsdon and she disappears.

Then we jump to a day in December when a train stops because the lines have been cut.  On investigation, a woman's body is found with her throat cut.  Black and her boss Tom Fleming have been working a missing person's case; this is the woman, Karen Hughes.  Hughes mother is an alcoholic being held in a psychiatric facility to dry out.  Father is in prison and wants to know if she was murdered because of him.  He's being released soon and there had been an article in a tabloid about him.

Set in Ireland in border between Nationalist and Unionist areas, there are many references to "the troubles."  It makes investigating more difficult than in other places.  Black and Fleming discover Hughes had a new cell phone and her Facebook page showed a new friend named Paul Bradley.  The phone has disappeared but apparently she met Bradley at a shopping center.  It proves almost impossible to find out who he really is.  

Yet another plot twist has Black saving her former boyfriend Robbie's young charge from a savage beating by eight boys.  Gavin is a difficult kid who really doesn't want to be saved.  It appears he is being pulled into gang activities.  Since Black had recently broken up with Robbie, she's involved whether she wants to be or not.  Sounds confusing and sometimes it is a little but well worth the time to figure out.

Recommended EBook
Source:  Partners in Crime Tours