Captivating character study of what happens when two young sisters disappear one morning.
Kylie is 10 and a fire-cracker who back-talks her mother and uses her makeup. Bailey is 8 and loves school especially vocabulary. Jamie, their mother, needed to pick up a quick kid’s birthday gift for a party for which they were already late. Jamie decided it would be faster if she ran into Kmart by herself. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. When she looks out of the store a few minutes later the girls are no longer in the car. She searches the nearby businesses but can’t find the girls. They are gone.
Jamie’s aunt, a local real estate agent, hires private detective Alice Vega. Vega is famous for solving several other missing children cases. Vega hires a local private investigator, Max Caplan, to help her get access to the local police files. Caplan quit his job with the department five years earlier in a messy scandal after a kid died in lockup. Both Vega and Caplan have heavy emotional baggage but are intent on finding little Kylie and Bailey before it is too late. The girls’ family also have an interesting dynamic.
Two Girls Down is a thriller but more thought-provoking viewed as a character study. The characters are all distinct and authentic. The resolution is unexpected and unlike a typical thriller. 4 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, Doubleday, and Netgalley for an advanced review copy. Two Girls Down will be published on January 9, 2018.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: Child abduction, Family, Jan 9 2018, PI, Police procedural