Title: Missing PersonAuthor: Sarah Lotz
Published by: Mulholland Books on Sep. 3, 2019
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback, ARC
Source: HBG Canada
Book Rating: 7.5/10
From acclaimed horror writer Sarah Lotz, hailed by Stephen King as “vastly entertaining,” a new novel about a group of amateur detectives infiltrated by the sadistic killer whose case they’re investigating.
Reclusive Irish bookseller Shaun Ryan has always believed that his uncle Teddy died in a car accident. It’s only on his mother’s deathbed that he learns the truth: Teddy, who was gay, fled the Catholic, deeply conservative County Wicklow for New York decades earlier. Shaun finds no sign of him in New York or anywhere else–until he comes across the unsolved murder of a John Doe whose description matches Teddy’s.
Desperate for information, Shaun tracks down Chris Guzman, a woman who runs a website dedicated to matching missing persons cases with unidentified bodies. Through Chris’s site, a group of online cold case fanatics connect Teddy with the notorious “Boy in the Dress” murder, believed to be one of many committed by a serial killer targeting gay men.
But who are these cold case fanatics, and how do they know so much about a case that left the police and the FBI stumped? With investigators, amateurs, and one sadistic killer on a collision course, Missing Person is Sarah Lotz at her most thrilling and terrifying.
Review:
Gripping, mysterious, and sinister!
Missing Person is a captivating, slow-burning mystery that takes us into the lives of Shaun Ryan, a young Irish lad whose uncle has been missing for the past twenty years, a group of online amateur sleuths who take it upon themselves to identify and pursue new evidence in cold cases, and a ruthless killer who may or may not be willing to kill again.
The writing is methodical and sharp. The characters are secretive, sly, and determined. And the plot told from multiple perspectives builds steadily as it twists, turns, and unravels all the behaviours, actions, motivations, relationships, and personalities within it.
Missing Person is ultimately a novel about family, friendship, secrets, manipulation, jealousy, criminal fanatics, obsession, violence, and murder that does a nice job of reminding us that people aren’t always who they perceive themselves to be, especially online. And even though I would have loved a little more urgency and thrills it was still a dark, creepy, entertaining read.
This book is available now.
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Thank you to HBG Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
About Sarah Lotz
Sarah Lotz is a screenwriter and novelist with a fondness for the macabre and fake names. Among other things, she writes urban horror novels under the name S.L. Grey with author Louis Greenberg; a YA pulp-fiction zombie series, Deadlands, with her daughter, Savannah, under the pseudonym Lily Herne; and quirky erotica novels with authors Helen Moffett and Paige Nick under the name Helena S. Paige. She lives in Cape Town with her family and other animals.
Photograph courtesy of Goodreads Author Page.
