Sixteen years ago he lost his sisters.Now he wants them back.I long for the day when we can be together again, a family once more, with brand-new sisters to replace the old. Mother tells me the time isn’t right yet, but it will be soon.Four years ago, two teenage girls were abducted. Four years ago, a ten-year-old boy was murdered. Both cases are still unsolved.Desperate to find their sisters, … unsolved.
Desperate to find their sisters, Michael and Chloe beg investigative journalist Maggie Dupont to help them. What starts as a simple investigation soon turns into a frantic race against time as they realise that the kidnapper took the girls to replace his sisters. The sisters who died sixteen years earlier.
Forced to face traumatic events from the past, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a nightmare that’s about to get worse…
Tense, fast paced, and gritty, The Lost Girls is the first novel in the Maggie Dupont series.
Books in the Maggie Dupont Suspense Series (in reading order):
The Lost Girls
Shadows from the Past
more
A top-level thriller and a psychological read at the same time.
I love Helen Pryke’s writing style, so when I heard she had a new book, ‘The Lost Girls’ I wanted to read it asap. It is a total different genre than her books of the Innocenti family and I have to admit that in the beginning I had difficulties to come into the story. But then, after a while I was completely absorbed into this exciting thriller and it changed into a page-turner.
Pryke gives us an insight into what an abduction does to the victims, here two young girls and into the head of the psychopath. This is a top-level thriller, but at the same time a real Helen Pryke’s psychological read. She gives us an in-depth view on what the main characters in the book are thinking and feeling. And therefore, even when it took some time to get into the story, I want to give this book 5 stars and certainly recommend it.
THE LOST GIRLS by Helen Pryke is a thriller that is the first book in a new series featuring a female investigative journalist and it will keep you on the edge-of-your-seat. The author had me anxious and squirming with each revelation about the antagonist’s past.
Four years ago, a young boy is kidnapped and his dead body is discovered a few days later. The same week his family is grieving, one girl is abducted as she walks home from school and another is abducted just a week later in front of the same school. All three cases go cold with no resolution.
Michael and Chloe want resolution to their sister’s disappearances. They approach investigative journalist, Maggie Dupont for help. Maggie is willing to write a piece to bring the girl’s case back into the news, but as they uncover clues that the police missed they suddenly find themselves in a race against the clock to find the kidnapper before their sisters become replacements for his sisters who died sixteen years earlier in a house fire.
Maggie is a wonderfully complex protagonist. With a traumatic past and her present health issues, she is still willing to help Michael and Chloe. Her curiosity and search for justice will not let her take the easy way out. Maggie and the kidnapper in alternating chapters reveal their pasts and the events in present time. The plot was fast paced and built to an exciting climax, but I did have a problem with Maggie not notifying the police, especially when they uncovered important information from a witness and they found the house in which the girls were first hidden. Up to that point, I would have said this story was believable, but that changed my mind. I did think the author did a good job of demonstrating the rescued girls’ PTSD in the epilogue.
I enjoyed this start to the Maggie Dupont series and am interested in reading more.
An entertaining, pacy read.
This is the first of Helen Pryke’s books I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. Maggie is a realistic, likable character and the teenagers are well-written too. Five stars from me.
Great read, a nail-biter. Had to take a breather every once in a while
I reached for The Lost Girls with a huge interest and curiosity, as suspense thrillers are the genre I am very fond of. There was no single moment I would lose my interest in the plot, it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the whole book.
The story of two teenage girls trapped with a mentally disturbed man reads so well, it is coherent all the time and excellently written – Helen really has a storyteller gift. What I liked about the book and what was so interesting to me, was the insight I got into the reasoning and way of thinking of James – the negative character. However, equally interesting was the way Jane and Charlie perceived the turns of events, their reasoning and view of the situations they faced. The book’s other protagonist, a determined journalist Maggie Dupont is a person whom you could like right away and whom anyone finds reliable and trustworthy. The story has several twists and turns of events that make it a real page-turner and it keeps the good pace all the time. I have read it with a genuine pleasure and cannot wait to read Helen’s newest book, which is just about to be released!
Another hit from Helen Pryke! I’ve read almost all of her books and I’ve loved each one. This novel is different from the rest but she did a great job creating a suspenseful, gripping, creepy thriller. I enjoyed that she put the psychopath in first person POV. It added gruesome but necessary detail to understand his motives. The length of the novel is not too long so if a reader enjoys shorter stories, this is the one to pick.