Lost

By: Michael Robotham

Narrated by: Ray Lonnen

Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

Michael Robotham's Suspect, hailed as "a lightning-paced debut" by Entertainment Weekly, was an international best seller that raised the bar for thrillers. Now two characters from that acclaimed novel, Detective Vincent Ruiz and psychologist Joe O'Loughlin, return for the electrifying Lost. When Detective Ruiz is pulled from the Thames, he has a bullet in his leg, a photograph of a missing (and presumed dead) girl in his pocket, and absolutely no memory of what happened.

©2006 Michael Robotham (P)2006 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A thoughtful and subtle thriller, with convincing, three-dimensional characters." (Publishers Weekly)

skip the middle

I like Robotham books. But this one was so long it lost me in the middle. After falling asleep a few times I gave up reading the middle of this book. It is so boring and I didn't care about the characters.

Good enough story, but not entirely to my liking

I was looking forward to following psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin again as he cracks another case, this time involving none other that DI Vincent Ruiz, his sworn enemy in the first book, who has been fished out of the Thames with a grave leg shot wound and a missing finger, but no memory whatsoever of the events that got him in that situation. But I was sorely disappointed that the narration this time had been handed over to Ruiz telling the events from his perspective, with O'Loughlin only playing a secondary role. The story that emerges is a good one and held my attention all along: a little girl has gone missing without a trace while making her way from the fifth floor of her apartment building to the ground floor where a friend was waiting to meet her.

There are mean gangsters and a huge cache of diamonds thrown in the mix which also held my interest, but I could have done without the pedophile who is suspected of having killed the girl—a story element I thoroughly dislike in any book, no matter how well put together. I still may continue with this series, if only to see where Robotham takes it next, now that he's gotten the pedophile out of his system.

Excellent stor

Until I listend to Lost "Lincoln Lawyer" was my listen of the year. But Lost has moved into the number one spot. Yes, the story was a little far fetched but it was fast paced, amusing, intense and different. The reader was perfect and in general this was a great book.

Ruiz's turn to get out from under

The Parkinson's angle isn't as pronounced in Lost because Joe isn't the central figure. Instead he's now Ruiz's friend and becomes his sounding-board. Ruiz counts on Joe's near prescient insight into human behavior, habitat and habits. Like in Suspect, Ruiz isn't guilty of what people suspect him. He truly can't remember why he was on the boat, what happened to everyone on it and where the missing diamonds are. After his one ally is taken out in the line of duty, he has no one and the equivalent of Internal Affairs is gunning for him. Through breaks in his memory and deduction he knits up the unraveled past and finds the real truth to the 3-year-old murder and the events on the boat.

I particularly liked how well Robotham conveyed Ruiz's frustration to the reader. I wanted to know what happened as badly as Ruiz did, but like him, I couldn't find out. Not right away. And the way sections of his memory returned and how they helped him connect up the facts was well done, too. It kept things off-balance yet moving forward at the same time. Little things would come to him after a big chunk of the missing time returned and he'd be able to get a little further. In hindsight, the solution to the kidnapping and the murder should have been less of a surprise to me. I had a bit of a "doh" moment there at the end. What I wish we had a bit more of was what happened with Ruiz at the end. Did he get back on the force or not? Maybe in the next book we'll find out.

Ok but not great

Guess I was hoping for more given the other reviews, but this was just so-so. We'll read and I got through the story, but it seemed to drag in places.

Could not put it down

Grabbed my interest and kept it until the end. Plots and twists are superb
And they were very realistic too

Too much angst and depression

Would you try another book from Michael Robotham and/or Ray Lonnen?

Probably not

Would you recommend Lost to your friends? Why or why not?

The book (or the reader) was generally too slow. The main character, Det Vince Ruiz, has some good points but he is just way too bummed all the time: life is not good, things go bad, everybody hates me... Some of the story is really good but the reader is just so SLOW about everything.

Would you be willing to try another one of Ray Lonnen’s performances?

No

I got lost in Lost

What started out as an exciting listen became confusing, going back and forth in time. I've read this author before and enjoyed his books immensely. Good points: Secrets. Humor. Mystery. Murder. I wanted to know the ending, but could not get through to it. Narrator Ray Lonnen does a flawless job. I will give it another try later.

Narration is horribly uneven

I think this was a good story but I know I missed parts of it because the narrators volume was too up and down. One characters voice would be loud and bellowing and the character he was talking to was spoken in a whisper. If you listen while being active, it’s impossible to keep adjusting the volume and as a result, you will miss some of the story. I do think it was a pretty good story from what I could make out.

A Liverpudlian John Wayne

I very much appreciate M Robotham's books and started listening a few books into the series centering on Joe O'Loughlin. So I listened to this one out of sequence. I'm glad of that. If I'd come to it first I wouldn't have bothered with the rest of the series. Predictable, hoaky and full of machismo it annoyed and disappointed. But if you love the series it has to be a piece of the puzzle worth collecting. Ruiz is the central character on the verge of retirement. The warm, dependable and philosophical character of the series is not really the Ruiz you will meet here. He's more of a stubborn wooden-head, continually and drearily referencing his own and other's masculine characteristics. Similarly, O'Loughlin is a pale shadow of the character he will later become. So both characters are in prototype. I'm very glad Robotham develops his world so much more effectively as he returns to it with the later books. Suspect is my much anticipated next purchase.