First Girl Gone
(Charlotte Winters #1)
by L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain
Down the beach, she can just make out the rusting hulk of the Ferris wheel through the dawn mist. The hairs prickle on her neck as she drags her focus back to the chestnut hair fanned out in the shallow water at her feet, to the grains of sand decorating the beautiful girl’s white cheeks like freckles.
Detective Charlie Winters never thought she’d find herself back on Salem Island, but she’s forced home re-open the wound that never healed: her sister was abducted from the small town when they were teenagers. But now a family friend needs her help to find her missing daughter, Kara.
Searching Kara’s messy, poster-covered bedroom, Charlie finds more questions than answers. Did Kara run away, or was she snatched? She’s clearly been keeping secrets from her family—but don’t all teenagers?
A little black matchbook hidden in a jewelry box is Charlie’s only lead, but the seedy nightclub it comes from proves to be nothing but a dangerous dead end. Until Charlie is approached by a second distraught mother whose daughter has also vanished.
Forced at every turn to relive the trauma she ran away from, Charlie’s blood runs cold when a girl’s body is discovered in the exact spot on the water’s edge where the last trace of her sister was found. It’s clear someone is taunting Charlie, but with other innocent girls’ lives at risk, she has no choice but to take the bait…
An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller that will leave you gasping for breath. Fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni, and Lisa Regan will need to sleep with the lights on!
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
So… Misty Dawkins… She got fat… See? That’s why I’m never having kids… You pop out some crotch fruit, and your hips and thighs stay doughy until the end of time.
He’d lost so much weight, and the lack of hair and eyebrows only added to the frail appearance. He looked withered and gaunt. Like a tree that someone forgot to water.
His hulking figure looked, in this moment, very apelike. Between his oddly animal posture and the unkempt beard crawling so high on his cheeks, Charlie couldn’t help but think of him as a man about halfway through the transition to werewolf.
It strikes me that a lot of us live in a sort of echo chamber these days. We surround ourselves with people who agree with us on everything— politics, art, entertainment.
But you don’t know what it was like growing up next door to him. He was like Bart Simpson. One time, he melted a hole in one of my Barbie dolls with a magnifying glass.
My Review:
This was a ripper of a series opener; I will be camping out on the authors’ pages to make sure I don’t miss the subsequent installments. I am hooked, ensnared, addicted, and infatuated with these clever and conniving wordsmiths as well as their oddly appealing and unusual quirky characters. I do loves me a kickass chick with clever snark, and this book had two.
The writing was easy to fall into with storylines that intrigued, beguiled, and taunted the little pea in my brain to immediately begin to conjure theories. I was so smug in believing I had easily solved the case with my initial suspect being the villain. But, nooooo. These wily authors had outmaneuvered me and I had fallen for their trickery. How have I not read these prolific scribblers before? They seem to be like potato chips as now that I’ve had a taste of their salty goodness, I must have more.
About the Author
d has remained in the top 10 in multiple sub-categories since it was published in 2017.
Love your review and I’m super curious to read the book. Don’t you just love it when authors surprise you and don’t go for the obvious choices in villains? I myself adore that feeling!
I love it when authors have you guessing the identity of the villain. They make you believe one thing and then they turn it around and have you one again guessing.
Excellent review. The first quote had me laughing. “Crotch fruit” lol!
I wants this
This looks like my kind of read. Great review.
I’m glad you enjoyed this one! I saw it on Goodreads and wasn’t sure about it, but your review has me intrigued.
It looks like a great crime thriller!
Amazing review I love it when a books makes you guess wrong when you think you have figured it out, I must check this book out. I am really glad you fully enjoyed reading this book DJ. Thank you so much for sharing your awesome post and for putting this book on my radar.
I love it when I am outmaneuvered by the author. This sounds exciting. Thanks for sharing DJ
Potato chips do it for you, huh? How about a couch potato? Like me.
Oooh this was a book I missed and a book I loved. I knew you would love the snark
This book does look good.