D.S. Lucy Black, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the daughter of police officers, in the midst of a search for a young girl, Kate McLaughlin, whose father is a prominent businessman, stumbles [almost literally] upon another young girl, wandering in what is termed an ‘ancient woodland,’ suffering severe hypothermia among other things due to her prolonged exposure to the elements in the brutal winter cold and snow. The latter child is unidentified, and remains so despite pleas to the public and circulation through print media and televised press conferences of her information and photograph. The only one to achieve any response from the girl, and that very limited, is Lucy.
Chief Superintendent Travers, of the CID, transfers Lucy, despite her desire for a post in the CID, to the Public Protection Unit “for the foreseeable future,” and assigns her to the case of the unidentified child. Her position is made more complex than it otherwise might be by virtue of the fact that her mother is the Assistant Chief Constable. Only in the division a month, Lucy has taken pains to keep that information hidden, made easier by the fact that her mother reverted to her own name when her parents divorced 14 years earlier. The two investigations proceed side by side, the lines at times crossing from one to the other. As the tale goes one, the heart-tugging stories of more than one other Little Girls Lost arise.
Lucy’s personal life intrudes on her work: She had requested her present assignment because her father, an ex-cop for over twenty years, is now increasingly suffering from dementia, if not actually Alzheimer’s, and she has moved back to Derry after many years away. Her relationship with both her parents is strained, to say the least, and becomes more so as the novel proceeds. Derry is cited as “the birthplace of The Troubles,” and however long ago that era was, perhaps inevitably its presence is still very much a force in the lives of those who lived through it. A fascinating novel, and recommended.
