TWO GIRLS GO TO A PARTY, ONLY ONE RETURNS ALIVE
Toni, the surviving teenager, is found delirious, wandering the muddy fields. She has been drugged and it's uncertain whether she'll survive. She says she saw her friend Emily being dragged away from the party. But no one knows who Emily is or even if she's still alive.
Meanwhile the drowned body of another girl has been found on an isolated beach.
And how does this all relate to the shocking disappearance of a little girl nearly a decade ago, a crime which was never solved? The girl's mother is putting immense pressure on the police to re-open the high-profile case.
EACH ONE OF THEM IS SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER AND THE POLICE MUST GIVE THEIR FAMILIES JUSTICE AND CLOSURE
DI Rowan Jackman and DS Marie Evans of the Fenland police are stretched to the limit as they try to bring the perpetrators of these shocking crimes to justice.
There is evidence of an illegal drinking club run by a shadowy group of men, who are grooming teenagers. And the team come across a sinister former hospital called Windrush which seems to house many dark secrets.
***
[For a second Jackman lay still]***
(Audible Studios, 14 June 2018, 9 hours 46 minutes, audiobook, bought from Audible)
***
***
I'd never heard of the author before. I loved Their Lost Daughters so now need to devour every book Ellis has written. I love thrillers and this book offered something a little different. Their Lost Daughters is gripping and I was engrossed listening every morning before I went to work. I loved the way the links between seemingly unconnected events are gradually revealed. There are disturbing scenes in the book. I was unnerved by the illegal drinking club. Adult men who offer teenagers free booze and space to party clearly have sinister intent. I felt physically ill when the police make a gruesome discovery after searching the tunnels beneath Windrush. I really wasn't expecting this on top of everything else. I don't think I've been so shocked before. I had such a case of the creeps. The Lost Daughters gets really intense from this moment and things don't really let up until the police find another hidden room beneath the chamber of horrors. In some way, what they find in this second location isn't as bad as what lies above but in some ways its worse. Ellis goes a great job of eliciting sympathy for the killer, whose psyche is twisted by terrible events in his childhood. The quality of the production was impressive as well and the narrators did a great job.
