The Lost

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Roberta Kray's first novel, The Debt, was published to universal acclaim: 'You might expect a crime novel written by the widow of Reggie Kray would be tough - it is. Recommend this to fans of Ian Rankin and Ken Bruen'(Booklist). In this third novel, there's more from the dangerous and unpredictable underworld she knows so well. Private eye Harry Lind doesn't believe in ghosts. Little Grace Harper went missing over twenty years ago, and missing girls can't just reappear - or can they? It takes a brutal murder to make him think again. Reporter Jess Vaughan is convinced that Grace is still alive but she's going to need some help to prove it. As she and Harry begin to unravel an age-old web of deceit and betrayal their discoveries soon put them on a collision course with one of London's most notorious gangsters. The search for the truth is about to lead them into a world where people will kill to preserve their secrets.From Publishers WeeklyAt the start of Kray's compelling, character-driven third London gangland novel (after The Pact and The Lost), Len Curzon, an alcoholic reporter interviewing a small-time villain in a local prison, notices a young woman visiting with a notorious older convict, Paul Deacon. The woman reminds him a lot of an eight-year-old girl, Grace Harper, who went missing 20 years earlier. Soon after making some indiscreet inquiries, Curzon is stabbed to death by an unknown assailant outside a pub. Meanwhile, PI Harry Lind, a crippled ex-cop, tries to track down a well-known crime czar's brother in-law, who's also disappeared. The two plot threads intersect when Jessica Vaughn, Curzon's friend and fellow reporter, has a boozy flirtation with Lind and persuades him that Curzon's murder isn't the random act of violence that the police assume. Kray captures the cadences and rhythm of underworld life, though some readers may feel some judicious trimming would have speeded up the action in spots. Still, fans of Derek Raymond and Ken Bruen will find much to admire. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library JournalAdult/High School—His body hobbled by an explosion he suffered less than a year earlier when he was a police officer, and his emotional life bruised by his longtime girlfriend's departure, private detective Harry Lind finds himself at the nexus of a crowd of mysteries. An alcoholic newspaper reporter is killed shortly after the two have a casual conversation. The reporter's protégée, a young woman with moxie to match his, attaches herself to Harry, not for emotional support but to browbeat him into helping her solve the murder and to identify the story on which her mentor was secretly working. That story, it turns out, involves another young woman, one with a mysterious past, which may mean that she is the grown version of a girl believed to have died at the age of eight. Kray keeps all these balls nicely aloft, but it is her characters who make this mystery a winner. Methodically, she develops Harry's-and readers'-understanding that the little girl lost may have grown into a woman who has no desire to be found, and who will tell lies and half-truths to steer detectives (journalistic and otherwise) away from discovering who she is and what she did as a teen. Mystery fans will appreciate the storytelling here.—Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.