The Missing Ones

Detective Lottie Parker, Book 1

De: Patricia Gibney

Narrado por: Michele Moran

The hole they dug was not deep. A white flour bag encased the little body. Three small faces watched from the window, eyes black with terror.

The child in the middle spoke without turning his head. "I wonder which one of us will be next?"

When a woman's body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs. It's clear the pair are connected, but how?

The trail leads Lottie to St Angela's, a former children's home, with a dark connection to her own family history. Suddenly the case just got personal.

As Lottie begins to link the current victims to unsolved murders decades old, two teenage boys go missing. She must close in on the killer before they strike again, but in doing so is she putting her own children in terrifying danger?

Lottie is about to come face to face with a twisted soul who has a very warped idea of justice.

©2017 Patricia Gibney (P)2017 Bookouture

Gibney's research lacking

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I stopped listening when I got to the place where Lottie (the main character) the detective doesn't call the police when she's attacked. It makes no sense. The attacker could've dropped something to provide a clue. She was attacked. Her children were threatened and she doesn't call for help? The story stopped making sense for me.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Oh, the narrator was quite good.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. The story started out and I was invested. But when I hit that moment that had me leave the story to say, "What the heck? Why didn't she call for help?" I had no desire to forgive and go back to the story.

Any additional comments?

Hard to put down

Great cast of complex characters and character development. Even though I'm not into church scandals, fact or fiction, this story gripped me from the first few lines and had me nail biting at the end. The one thing that I don't normally like but was present in this story is that everything - everything - revolves around or is connected to the main character. This however will still rate as one of the most enjoyable reads this year. Can't wait for more.

Loved it!

I loved loved loved it! I love that the narrator was Irish made the story being in Ireland that much better. The story was great sad but still good.

Not So Much

I am among those readers that are a bit disappointed in this book for several reasons.

I am a voracious reader as well as a lover of audiobooks, reading and/or listening to more than 300 books a year. It's very rare for me to start wishing a book would just hurry and finish. But that's how I felt about this one. I had to speed it up because the narration was on the slow side and I felt like I was just treading water. Changing the playback speed helped, but it just felt like this story was going to go on forever.

Perhaps I felt that way because I just couldn't buy into the main character, Lottie. I'm fine with a strong female lead, but this woman just didn't display many good qualities. A personality can be gruff, craggy, antagonistic, or just lacking in all social graces and still show some kind of positive traits. But Lottie seemed to revel in being hard nosed, bitter, and cruel. Despite her many flaws, she has several men drooling after her throughout the book, presumably because of her stellar looks. Nice.
Many of the other characters were so underdeveloped that they seemed two-dimensional and unable to be a good balance for Lottie's prickly personality.

While the plot had several twists and turns, it also had quite a few red herrings that were simply unnecessary. With the size of the cast, there were times when the characters became a bit jumbled and it became difficult to keep them all straight. Sadly, I also wasn't crazy about the ending. But that happens occasionally.

Readers should be aware that a major theme within this story involves the Catholic church and its neglect to remove abusive priests. The story is graphic in its violence and language, and features gritty concepts throughout. If any of these is an issue for you, you might want to choose another novel.

Too long

Too long, story drug out with details that get confusing and repetitive to keep listeners attention.

Truly jaw-dropping!

This book deals with some pretty deep stuff but the author handled it well. Murders bring out decades-old secrets that were once harbored in an abandoned church run orphanage. Some of which are closer to Detective Lottie Parker than even she knows. Lottie is a struggling widowed mom who’s barely hanging on after the death of her husband but she does what’s right and does not give in to pressure. Hope that her superintendent gets what’s coming to him…looking forward to the next book!

Decent read but not gripping as others have described

The characters in this novel were pretty well developed which is essential in a good read. The story was a bit too convoluted and got confusing. There was too much time spent on non-essential characters such as Detective Lynch and the corner. Every time they popped up, I had to remind myself who they were, because they really didn’t have a place in the story. Therefore, the book ended up being far longer than it had to be. A good story could’ve been told here, but it missed because of all of the winding and nonessentials. Also, there was nothing gripping about the mystery at all. I could tell who the good guys and bad guys were from the very beginning and there were no surprises.

The story was well written and I liked the narrato

The story was well written and I liked the narrator. The book is about pedefilia in a local Catholic orphanage and the fallout from it. There are spots in the book where they give you enough info to know what is going on....that was difficult for me to hear, but it was necessary to convey the abhorrence of the deed and the pain it caused the victims.

great read. catches your attention in the first ch

loved it! caught my attention while reading the 1st chapter! narration was great as well!

amazing

could not stop listening this book was a thriller would listen to it over and over again