Buried Angels (DI Lottie Parker #8) by Patricia Gibney
Genre: Crime fiction, police procedural
Read: 2nd December 2020
Published: 26th May 2020
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Bubbles of cold sweat trickled down Faye’s spine. The hole wasn’t empty. Before she could turn and run, she caught the two sightless eyes staring up at her. Only then did she scream.
When Faye Baker discovers a fragile child’s skull behind the walls of her new home, Detective Lottie Parker is called to investigate. The house has been owned for years by the family of Faye’s boyfriend Jeff, so when Jeff starts acting suspiciously, Lottie wonders what he might be hiding…
Lottie doesn’t have long to dig deeper before a child’s bones are found by eleven-year-old Gavin on nearby railway tracks. The bones don’t match the small skull behind the walls, but Lottie can’t ignore the coincidence. Someone out there must be missing their loved ones and it’s up to her to put right a terrible wrong.
Unable to shake a feeling of foreboding, Lottie goes to speak to Faye, and discovers that she hasn’t turned up for work. When Faye’s body is found stuffed in the back of her car, Lottie needs to find out who wanted her to keep quiet.
As Lottie hunts for Faye’s killer, the case takes a darker turn when Gavin goes missing. Faye and Gavin are connected only by the grisly body parts they discovered. But who are these little victims and why has their killer come back? Can Lottie find the answers before another precious life is taken?
This thrilling new novel from bestselling author Patricia Gibney will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. If you like Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Rachel Caine, you’ll love Buried Angels.
MY REVIEW:
I've been a fan of the Lottie Parker series from the beginning and, despite missing a few books in between, it's always a pleasure to meet up with Lottie and Boyd again. BURIED ANGELS picks up around six months after the culmination of events in the previous book "Broken Souls" with an even greater puzzle for Lottie and her team to unravel this time around.
The story begins with the brutal murder of a mother and her two young daughters twenty years prior before picking up in the present day. Their names are as yet unknown as is their killer. But before long, DI Lottie Parker will link these past murders to the case she is currently investigating. The question is how are they related?
Lottie already has her hands full with Boyd's recent leukaemia diagnosis and ensuing treatment, not to mention her growing teenage children and adorable grandson. And then her eldest daughter Katie announces she wants to emigrate to New York.
Eleven year olds Jack and Gavin are busy flying Jack's drone before school when they discover the decapitated torso on the railway tracks. Suitably shocked, the boys raise the alarm and the Gardai are called with Lottie and her team tasked with identifying the victim and bring the culprit to justice. But then it is discovered that the torso is that of a young girl, leaving Lottie wondering who on earth would cut up an innocent child so callously. And then a hand is found a short distance away and as the team continue their search, a leg is discovered in the nearby canal. The question is - are these body parts from the same victim?
When Jeff Cole's aunt dies bequeathing him her house, he and pregnant girlfriend Faye Baker starts making plans to turn this into a family home. Desperate to make a start, Faye begins by ripping down the hideous wallpaper and discovers a hollow cavity where a range used to be. Deciding that the nook would be perfect for some shelving, Faye takes to the plaster with a hammer...only to reveal more than just an old nook. She gets the fright of her life when a skull rolls out from behind the plaster. She immediately tells Jeff who assures her that it is probably just a fake and discourages her from reporting it and wasting police time. But Faye feels a certain chill about the house...and after reading about the recent discovery of the torso, decides to report her find to the Gardai.
But when Faye turns up dead in the boot of their car, the investigation takes a different turn. If these discoveries are from an historic case, then why was Faye killed now? Then one of the boys who made the initial discovery of the torso disappears and is found dead the following day, it is clear someone will stop at nothing to keep the past dead and buried.
I must say, I was pleasantly surprised to find Lottie's family wasn't involved in any way this time...aside from her son Sean's friendship with one of the suspects' children. It made for a refreshing change...as did Lottie's demeanour this time round. Usually, she is surly and irritating but her relationship with DS Mark Boyd has mellowed her. And given that they have been engaged for the past couple of books, I look forward to when they actually tie the knot. I really hope this is a new start for Lottie after the heartache she's had to contend with in the past.
BURIED ANGELS is the eighth outing for DI Lottie Parker and her team and little by little, she gets better and better. While this is the eighth in the series, it still works well enough as a standalone with enough elements of Lottie's backstory woven throughout to keep the reader up to speed had they not read any other of the others. However, to make more sense of Lottie's journey and her growth, as well as the plots that have involved her children, beginning from the start always gives the reader a better perspective.
As with any Lottie Parker book, we hear from a variety of characters throughout as we try to piece the puzzle together alongside Lottie and her team. And I have to say, this time I was outwitted and didn't have a clue. I had my suspicions and while partly right, they weren't completely correct.
Still, it was an enjoyable read that had a steady pace throughout and keeps the reader engaged from start to finish. Always intriguing and I look forward to Book 9 coming in February 2021.
I would like to thank #PatriciaGibney, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #BuriedAngels in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Patricia Gibney is an Irish author of crime fiction who sold 100,000 copies of her first crime thriller as an e-book, and had total sales exceeding 500,000 copies in 2018. By 2019, total book sales had passed one million.
Patricia is from Mullingar, County Westmeath and has lived there all her life. She spent 30 years working with Westmeath County Council.
When her husband died in 2009, aged 49, three months after a diagnosis of cancer, Patricia turned to art and writing, self-publishing a children's book entitled 'Spring Sprong Sally'. She then started writing crime fiction and created her first novel in that genre featuring DI Lottie Parker with 'The Missing Ones'. She worked with the Irish Writers Centre to improve her writing. Eventually she began a second novel 'The Stolen Girls' and through that acquired an agent and a publishing contract with Bookouture.
Patricia currently has 8 DI Lottie Parker novels to date, with the ninth 'Silent Voices' to be published in February 2021, and is set in the fictional Irish town of Ragmullin, which is an anagram of the real-life town of Mullingar, where Patricia lives.
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