When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl's desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harbouring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie's disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmanoeuvre the shockingly twisted professors.
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It's an old city, and no longer in very good shape, nor is the lake beside which it has been built, but there are parts of it that are still pretty nice.- 1, October 17, 2012
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(@HodderBooks, 5 September 2023, hardback, 448 pages, bought from @bookshop_org_UK)
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I loved Holly. I'm a fan of the character so it was good to catch up with her again. Unusually so, you know from fairly early on who the bad guy's are. This has irritated me in other books as it's been a major spoiler which made me not want to read the book. However, King makes this work somehow, mostly because you get to learn about their motivations and what kind of people they are. I wanted to keep reading. Holly is bit of bad ass in this book, determined to find out what links Bonnie Dahl and other missing people she stumbles across. I didn't want the book to end.
