Book Review: Little Girl Lost & Hurt by Brian McGilloway

Really enjoyed this first outing for DS Lucy Black, having previously read a couple of author
Brian McGilloway’s Inspector Devlin series.

I really like the characters in Mr McGilloway’s books – very well written and believable. These are detective/police dramas based in Northern Ireland with the history of the troubles as a (distant) backdrop.

DS Lucy Black has her own demons to cope with but doesn’t spend pages of the book thinking about them, her family issues are just there in the background and make her the person she is.

As soon as I’d finished this book, I wanted to read more so quickly went on to the second Lucy book – Hurt. No falling off in quality, that was also a cracking read with a very believable
storyline about the grooming and abuse of vulnerable youngsters.

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Book Review: Testimony, Anita Shreeve

I’ve got a problem rating this book as I thought it was well written, it caught my attention and I wanted to keep reading – the ‘different voices’ proved a great way to tell the story from all the different points of view. BUT I really didn’t like the way the girl was portrayed and the difference that made to where sympathies are clearly being directed to lie. I think her back story would have maybe given a different view.

Can’t really say any more without giving huge spoilers but now I’ve finished the book, I have lots more questions about the motivation of various people and the back stories as you end up getting a tiny glimpse into a wide number of people’s lives instead of more in depth into a few.

I can’t really say I enjoyed this book – giving it a compromise of 3 stars for the writing, which is very good.