Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Little Girl Lost: A Lucy Black Thriller by Brian McGilloway

 

Little Girl Lost by Irish author Brian McGilloway (Pan Macmillan, 2011) is the first book about Detective Sergeant Lucy Black. Black transfers from the Lisburn police station to the CID unit in County Londonderry to stay closer to her father who suffers from progressively worse dementia. A month into her new job finds the entire force caught up in the search for the missing daughter of a wealthy Derry businessman. During a heavy snowfall a girl is reported in the woods near Prehen and the team is called out to the site. Lucy gets there first and finds a child, not the missing teenager, in soaked pajamas and freezing cold. She does not speak, even to give her name, clinging to Lucy who accompanies her to the hospital.

Because Lucy is the only person who can approach the child without setting off piercing shrieks, the powers that be temporarily assign her to the Public Protection Unit to find the child’s family to her great disappointment. Her new commanding officer seems a decent sort but she can’t help feeling sidelined from the action swirling around the high-profile case of the kidnapped girl.

While Lucy begins calling schools to ask about missing students, the forensics tech looks over the child’s clothing and finds it is covered with a fine spray of blood. Not hers, because she is unhurt beyond hypothermia, but someone else’s. There’s enough to believe the child came from a crime scene somewhere, making the need to identify her more urgent than ever.

An absorbing, complex, and realistic police procedural. The multiple plot threads come together in a surprising way, solving an old crime as they do.

Lucy Black is a wonderful character. Her intelligence, kindness, and determination make her a promising police officer. Anyone who has worked in a bureaucracy will understand her struggles with the politics and the favoritism of the police organization. Her attempts to avoid putting her father into a care facility as he becomes progressively worse are heartbreakingly realistic. Watching her juggle the two as the larger drama of the kidnapping plays out is fascinating. Recommended.

Starred review from Library Journal.

 

·         Publisher: ‎William Morrow Paperbacks

·         Publication date: ‎May 6, 2014

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0062336592

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0062336590

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:  https://amzn.to/3WJBYMI

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Blood Ties by Brian McGilloway

Brian McGilloway is an Irish writer from Derry. He writes two crime fiction series, one about Inspector Ben Devlin in Lifford on the border between north and south Ireland and the other about Detective Sergeant Lucy Black of Derry. His Inspector Devlin books have been nominated for multiple awards and appeared on several best of the year lists.

The sixth Devlin, Blood Ties (Constable, 2021) is set in March 2020, on the eve of the Brexit vote and as COVID took over the world. Devlin is moving his widowed father in with his family to ride out what everyone believed would be a brief lockdown. His oldest has started college and is away from home for the first time. Devlin is reflecting on the rate of change around him and not liking it. He is worried about his father and is worried about himself, as he sees his role of father fading into the background and wonders what will take its place.

Absorbed with these fears, he is called to the scene of a particularly bloody murder: A 30ish man alone in an under furnished and anonymous house, which turns out to be an air BnB. Devlin thought the victim looked familiar but could not place him. A search of his telephone and laptop showed he had been meeting teenaged girls on the internet and was in Lifford to meet one who looked far too young.

When his fingerprints are checked, Devlin learned that the victim was from the area and had been convicted some years ago in the brutal murder of a high school classmate while high on drugs. People still remembered the dead girl and grieved for her, and almost anyone could have turned killer. Then the angry fathers and brothers of his current targets had to be checked. Devlin had almost too many possibilities. No one really cared about finding the killer, once the victim’s identity was known, so Devlin largely worked alone while caring for his father.

Ben Devlin is a great character. He is introspective, not typical of the usual fictional detective; his concern for his father is deeply moving. His internal soliloquies are among the best parts of the book. The writing is exquisite. Flowing, expressive prose implements an intricate plot, I found myself deeply involved in no time. The plot was more convoluted than the first chapters led me to expect and the ending is a well-constructed surprise. Highly recommended.

·         Publisher: Constable (March 25, 2021)

·         Language: ‎English

·         ISBN-10: ‎1472133641

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1472133649

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.