She left the NYPD in the firestorm of a high-profile case gone horribly wrong. Three years later, the ghosts of her past roar back to terrifying life.When NYPD undercover cop Laney Bird’s cover is blown in a racketeering case against the Russian mob, she flees the city with her troubled son, Alfie. Now, three years later, she’s found the perfect haven in Sylvan, a charming town in upstate New … charming town in upstate New York. But then the unthinkable happens: her boy vanishes.
Local law enforcement dismisses the thirteen-year-old as a runaway, but Laney knows better. Alfie would never abandon his special routines and the sanctuary of their home. Could he have been kidnapped–or worse? As a February snowstorm rips through the region, Laney is forced to launch her own investigation, using every trick she learned in her years undercover.
As she digs deeper into the disappearance, Laney learns that Alfie and a friend had been meeting with an older man who himself vanished, but not before leaving a corpse in his garage. With dawning horror, Laney discovers that the man was a confidential informant from a high-profile case she had handled in the past. Although he had never known her real identity, he knows it now. Which means several other enemies do, too. Time is running out, and as Laney’s search for her son grows more desperate, everything depends on how good a detective she really is–badge or no.
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“Laney Bird’s son vanished the night she drove a busload of high school seniors to see Wicked on Broadway.” Emilya Naymark had me hooked from the first line of her debut novel. Laney Bird is the perfect heroine. Tough, scrappy, flawed . . . and now, terrified.
Once a well-respected uncover cop with the NYPD, married to the “perfect” man, and the mother of an adorable toddler, at the start of Hide in Place Laney finds herself divorced and living in Sylvan, New York, with a difficult teen she doesn’t know how to handle.
It’s her son’s troubled history that makes the local authorities dismiss her fears when she arrives at the police station to report her son gone.
“It’s Alfie,” she said, her voice coming shrill and taut from her throat, hurting her. “He’s not home. Hasn’t come home.”
“Again?” asked Ed.
His eyes settled on her…
What’s a mother to do? Well, if you were once a hardworking police officer with multiple arrests under your belt, you race to solve your son’s disappearance yourself.
The more Laney digs into her son’s disappearance, the more she realizes her past has arrived to haunt them both. The clues lead her back into her undercover life, and her undercover persona Kendra. Wearing Kendra’s identity again allows Laney to act outside normal societal conventions.
Laney shines as a distraught mother willing to do anything to protect her son. Alfie is oddly empathetic in the chapters that shift to his point of view. Though Naymark never spells out exactly what Alfie struggles with, we come to discover the challenges he faces fitting in with his friends, his teachers, and his community.
The local cop, the aforementioned Ed, also becomes much more relatable as the story unfolds and he begins to realize that Laney is a lot more than just an overworked, overstressed mom of a challenging son.
Rounding out the characters, Laney’s best friend Holly is everything Laney is not, girly, sociable, color-coordinated, and nonjudgmental. Holly brings a little lightness to the dark world Laney inhabits, and the even darker world where Alfie finds himself. Holly is also fearless and loyal, two characteristics of a friend that are just what Laney needs.
While the novel does focus primarily on Laney in the present, we also experience Alfie’s situation from his perspective and Naymark reveals much of Laney’s past as well. Twisting the three aspects together provides the reader a full picture of the complexities of the plot, which comes to a satisfying end.
Life is never going to be easy for Laney, but that just provides an excellent platform to launch the next book in what I hope will be a long and successful series.
Hide in Place by Emilya Naymark is a nerve-wracking thriller that will keep you anxious to find out if there will be a happy ending.
Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours on behalf of the author in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my rating in any way.
A retired detective has recently moved to a small town. When her son goes missing, the local police don’t take her seriously at first considering the kids history of outbursts. But when days go by and he’s still missing, and things from the detective’s past start to pop up, they realize that this isn’t just a teen that’s run from home… this is life or death.
I really enjoyed that this tale started out by really building the readers connection to the characters. So when the boy went missing, it caused immediate panic and frustration when the local PD wasn’t taking her seriously.
In her fierce determination to find her son, our main character makes a few decisions that will make readers shake their heads in dismay. But those risky choices soon start to work in her favor.
This one had me totally hooked. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next, especially when we started getting bits and pieces of her backstory that made what was happening in the present even more terrifying.
This was an awesome thriller that had many layers. With each reveal, I just got more and more nervous to see how everything would play out.
A must read for fans of thrillers that don’t just go from point a to point b, but take various steps back to fill in crucial details for later on.
Laney Bird has adjusted to her new life after leaving her career in New York as an officer, detective and undercover cop. When her husband walked out on her, she needed to be home to take care of their son, Alfie. Driving a school bus wasn’t her choice of occupation, but it enabled her to be home for her son. When Alfie goes missing, the police want to categorize him as a runaway, but she knows he wouldn’t just leave and not return. She decides to resurrect her former career and conduct her own investigation. Learning that Alfie had not only befriended an older man but that the man may have ties to her past has her fearing for his life. Is he using Alfie as revenge against her, but if so, why? A look at how far a mother will go to rescue her son. I received an advance review copy at no cost and without obligation for an honest review. (by paytonpuppy)
A former NYPD undercover detective suddenly finds her son missing. Frantically, she searches the kids at the school and runs into trouble with privacy and the local cops. But she must dig deeper if she has any hope of finding her son, including into a botched drug deal from her past. All her detective skills in the world aren’t enough without a little luck, and the day she’s having she might have to throw in the towel.
Very fast paced and scary as all hell if you are a parent. This is a debut novel, and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this talented author.
Emilya Naymark’s Hide in Place is a hold-your-breath debut, which begins with every mother’s nightmare – a child disappearing into the night. These characters will steal your heart as single-mom and ex-cop Laney is caught up in a frantic search for Alfie, her troubled teenaged son. I dare you not to care about these two.
Laney bird is a retired undercover cop who is bumbling along through life with her troubled son Alfie. Dealing with her daily struggles as a single mum then one day Alfie doesn’t return home
The book is captivating from the start. You get the back story of why alfie goes missing and all of the feelings and instincts of not just a mother but a retired cop, and just what she will do to have her son back.
I love the intensity of the book and intensity of all of everybodys feelings that are involved.
A deffinate must read it was capturing, intense and thrilling, deffinatly makes you want to turn the page to find out what happens next
Laney Bird was once an undercover cop, working mostly to take down drug dealers in the Russian mafia. Three years ago, one of her cases went really sideways. She has always hoped that her real identity had never been made public. She retired at that time in order to take care of her then 10-year-old son.
She’s now driving a school bus and spending time with her troubled son. But today .. her son disappeared. Abducted? Runaway? This wouldn’t be the first time he’s gone missing for day or so … but now it’s been 5 days with no contact and no one has seen him anywhere.
Has her past come to haunt her?
The police, for the most part, are thinking that he’s run away … but Laney knows he hasn’t. So she does what she knows best … she starts her own investigation.
This comes with an intricate plot with intriguing characters that stand out amid the swirling mass of twists and turns. All roads seem to lead in one direction … but does it really? There are plenty of suspects, and even her former colleagues are not above suspicion. The book is well written, giving readers a close look at Laney’s previous life as an undercover cop vs what’s she given up in order to care for her son. The suspense starts at the very beginning and maintains that level to the very last surprising ending.
Many thanks to the author / Crooked Lane Books / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.
According to Goodreads, Hide in Place by Emilya Naymark is book 1 of the Laney Bird series and I really hope that’s true since I would love to see more of Laney. Thanks to her being an ex-NYPD undercover cop, this book read a lot like a police procedural mixed with detective fiction and I loved that about it. I also really enjoyed how the author mixed present with Laney’s past so we could fully understand why she ended up leaving her job with the NYPD and why she’s in the situation she’s in now. The mystery in the book really comes more from her past than the disappearance of her son, although there is still a mystery hidden in that as well. This ended up being way more emotional than I was expecting it to be, and I loved that we got Laney’s viewpoint as well as Alfie’s.
I was immediately hooked as soon as I started Hide in Place, although I would say it is a bit on the slower side overall. There are still moments with plenty of action though and I think the switches between past and present really helped the story to flow well and keep the reader interested. Naymark did a great job weaving this plot together and the end had an element I never saw coming. It was actually a pretty realistic story as well which was a nice surprise, and it really makes it that much more emotional knowing it’s something that could actually happen. And ALFIE, your heart just goes out to him, and I thought Laney was a pretty kickass character. Overall this was a very engaging novel, and I will definitely be looking forward to book 2!
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Hide in Place by Emilye Naymark is a tightly coiled spring, ready to pop into the reader’s consciousness and grab hold. It hooked me from word one and wouldn’t let go. I read the whole advance reader’s copy in two sittings. What I liked most was Naymark’s painstaking characterization. The deep points of view of the two main characters drew me into the most secret parts of myself. How would I behave if I were thrown into the tense situations of this mother, this son? How were their losses merging in my reader’s brain with my own? This debut novel reads with the same page-turning intensity as those of the most polished writers in the business.