Customer Reviews

City of Lost Girls (Ed Loy PI)

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Declan Hughes' most recent book, CITY OF LOST GIRLS, is different from the previous Ed Loy books. The deranged people who have been a large part of his life are still there but on the edges of the story. In this book, Loy is dealing with a different kind of deranged killer, one who is a predator, enticing his victims by offering them help in the movie world where the line between pretense and reality is difficult to define.

Jack Donovan (who seems to be a combination of Neal Jordan, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and David Lynch) is a highly successful and acclaimed movie director whose career began with art house movies and progressed to the big screen and the big money. For most of his career, Donovan has worked in California and it was in California, 15 years before, that Ed Loy first met him. They met in a bar and one night Donovan decided to give Loy a part in the movie he was filming. Loy enjoys his 30 seconds of on-screen fame and when Donovan contacts him for help because three extras on his film have disappeared, Loy does his best to find them. The girls where run-aways from different parts of the US and it is only Donovan who notices they are gone and files the missing person reports. Loy has no luck finding them, Donovan's movie is finished, and Loy returns to Ireland.

All these years later, Donovan has returned to make a movie set in Dublin and the two men resume their friendship when Donovan asks Loy to look into some anonymous letters he has been receiving. Loy is willing and starts asking questions, learning that he really doesn't know anything about Jack Donovan at all. Then, Donovan's assistant contacts Ed. An extra on the film has disappeared, and then another, and then Loy decides he needs to put the third girl in hiding. Donovan has developed a style over the years, one in which he focuses on the faces of three minor players and the disappearance of the girls, unavailable now for filming, puts the movie in jeopardy. Donovan and Loy see clearly that this is a repeat of what happened in California and Loy sees clearly, that if the two incidents are connected there are only four suspects. The first is Jack Donovan, the second is Mark Cassidy, the cinematographer, the third is Conor Rowan, the assistant director, and the fourth is Maurice Faye, the producer of all Donovan's films. The Gang of Four are the only people who were at the sites of both disappearances.

Loy doesn't know how the anonymous letters and the disappearances of the girls are connected. Perhaps Kate and Nora did go off to party and will return, apologetically, in their own good time and continue their work on the film. But Loy knows, as he did in California, that these girls are gone.

Hughes intersperses the narrative with the thoughts of the murderer but he doesn't give anything away about the identity until he is ready to let the reader in on the secret. There is less overt brutality in this book but the body count is higher. I think it is the best book of the series.

Picked this novel up after crime writer Sam Millar gave it a powerful review. I wasn't disappointed. Hughes has a way with language that is almost poetic and has a beautiful sound to it. The story was very convincing, and I found myself reading on long into the night, page after page. The mind of the murderer is rendered in such a fashion in Hughes expert hands, that you will find yourself peeping over your shoulder, just to make sure no one is watching you. With City of Lost Girls, Hughes will broaden his already strong fan base, and welcome new members with open and bloody arms!
Easily the best novel I've read this year.

Shamus Award winner Declan Hughes isn't just any noteworthy crime writer - he's an Irish one and for this reader that makes all the difference. There's a bit of a poet in him, as well as a richly developed descriptive technique. Now, add to this his two decades as a playwright and screenwriter, a background which he brings to the printed page, and you have CITY OF LOST GIRLS.

With this, the fifth in Hughes's Irish private investigator Ed Loy series we find Loy torn between tracking a psychotic murderer who kills young girls, always a trio of them, and the history he shares with film director Jack Donovan. They go back quite a way; as Loy says of their past, "I don't want to talk about it, don't want to think about it. Sooner or later, we would get to it anyway. The past is always out there, a land mine buried and forgotten about, ready to blow the present apart at any moment." And, there are plenty of land mines for Loy to avoid in this story.

As it happens Donovan is now shooting a film in Dublin, and he calls Loy to find the person sending him threatening letters. The task is complicated when two extras in the film, young girls, go missing. There is a third girl, who must be protected. Eventually, Loy finds a similarity between what is happening in Dublin and what happened in Los Angeles some years ago - three young women disappeared from a film that Jack Donovan was making. LAPD never found them and when presumed dead had no clue as to the murderer.

Loy returns to Los Angeles to try to piece together the connection fully aware that a serial killer is still loose, perhaps in Dublin.

Hughes studs CITY OF LOST GIRLS with vignettes regarding Hollywood's beautiful people and film making itself, while at the same time ratcheting up suspense via an eerie voice, an anonymous narrator who is obviously the killer.

- Gail Cooke

Dublin private investigator Ed Loy is good at his job. While his line of work might not make him wealthy, he has the satisfaction of knowing he is doing what he enjoys in an honorable way. That wasn't always the case. Not when he worked for Irish film director Jack Donovan, "a carouser extraordinaire, professional Irishman, the life and soul of the all-night party...howling at the moon, raging once more against the dying of the light..."

Decades ago, Ed and Jack had been friends in Los Angeles, where Jack and his gang of four were making films. Ed had a small role in one of Jack's movies, and he also tied up loose ends off camera for Jack. One day, after once again dispatched to gently dismiss another of Jack's young lovers, Ed stopped being Jack's friend and eventually returned to his Irish home.

Over the past 20 years, Ed has tried to distance himself from his past with Jack, but he realizes, "The past is always out there, a land mine buried and forgotten about, ready to blow the present apart at any moment." So, when Jack contacts him with a desperate plea to find out who is behind the threatening letters he has received while filming in Dublin, Ed reluctantly takes the case. The source of the letters could be anyone --- including the gang of four --- even Jack himself.

In the famous Irish filmmaking gang of four, Jack gets top billing. The four men are a group of friends who started making no-budget movies almost 20 years earlier. Mark Cassidy is Jack's director of photography. Producer Maurice Faye is Jack's "diplomat, scammer, fixer extraordinaire." Connor Rowan, Jack's first AD, is charged with "waging total war for the good of the group."

Shortly after the threatening letters arrive, lovely young women Jack has hired as extras vanish. Their disappearance reminds Ed of an alarmingly similar case that occurred two decades ago. Three beautiful extras working on one of Jack's films in Los Angeles also vanished. To solve the case of the missing women in Ireland, Ed must travel to LA and dig into the past. But while he's out of the country, he puts his loved ones at risk.

Award-winning writer Declan Hughes's latest work is an intelligent mystery with a lot of heart, soul and class. Ed Loy is a clever, warm and determined private investigator troubled by his shaky past and trying to build a solid future. In addition to the intriguing story, engaging characters and haunting voice, the novel is rounded out with its lively Irish setting and persona, complete with Irish-Catholic guilt, fierce political rants, sexual repression and abuse, and singing and drinking in pubs.

Lovers of literary mysteries, readers fascinated by the Irish people and their culture, or anyone with a curiosity about the film industry should enjoy CITY OF LOST GIRLS.

Hughes' fifth novel to feature Dublin PI Ed Loy is a tour-de-force, a major evolution in structure and tone. Loy confronts the deepest secrets of his own past when an old friend, charismatic film director Jack Donovan, returns to Dublin to shoot a movie. Ten years ago, Ed and Jack parted ways after an incident both want to forget. Now Jack needs Ed's help again, but his concerns are only a fraction of the real problem. Two young women go missing from the film's set in a disturbing echo of disappearances from other film sets, years before. The mystery, which is fairly straightforward, is only the framework for some dazzling literary pyrotechnics and fierce, fearless insights about film-making, the nature of artists, and the ways the Irish want to be seen by the rest of the world.

Acclaimed Hollywood film director Jack Donovan is in on location in Dublin. He becomes concerned over anonymous letters he received; thus he contacts Ed Loy, who he met in a bar fifteen years ago and put in one of his films, to look into them. At the same time extras needed as Donovan always focuses on minor characters vanish for no apparent reason. Although they are runaways and could have just moved on, Ed is asked to make inquiries.

Ed and Jack realize what is happening in Ireland occurred in California years ago. Four known people were in both locations two decades apart: Jack; cinematographer Mark Cassidy, assistant director Conor Rowan, and producer Maurice Faye. As Loy assumes the two incidents are linked, he decides one of these males is the culprit.

The latest Loy mystery (see All The Dead Voices) is a terrific serial killer whodunit. For the most part the story line is fast-paced as Loy seeks clues to identify who is the psychopathic Pied Piper offering film opportunities as candy to lure the victim. City of Lost Girls is a tense thriller as Loy struggles to protect a third female extra from becoming the next victim by uncovering the identity of the predator.

Harriet Klausner

Bought this after reading crime writer Sam Millar's review in New York Journal of Books. It's my first Hughes' book, but won't be my last. He is a playwright, and a beautiful writer of calmness and certainty. Ed Loy is an amazing creation, and hopefully we will see him on the big screen soon.

This was a book club selection for the club I am in or otherwise I would have never finished this book. I have never read any of Hughes's books and I am sure I won't in the future. I found it poorly written, plot too drawn out as if the author wasn't sure where he was going with it. With so many good books out there, I am sorry I wasted my time reading this one.

After ten years when Ed Loy got disgusted and broke off his close friendship with larger-than-life Irish-born movie director Jack Donovan, they meet again in Dublin, where Ed is plying his PI trade and Jack is now making a movie. It appears Jack has received several threatening letters, and he asks Ed to determine the sender. Despite his misgivings, Ed undertakes the assignment.

Meanwhile, three pretty young women extras go missing, and Ed remembers his time in Los Angeles when three young starlets had also gone missing. The similarity is uncanny, since the common denominator is that they all initially appeared in a Donovan movie. The potential culprit for what may turn out to be a serial killer includes Donovan and three close associates, the "Gang of Four," who participate in each movie.

Hughes writes suspenseful crime/noir novels. His Dublin settings lend themselves to a bleaker side of the human race. In this novel we are treated to a lighter side of Ed Loy, which raises the question of whether he is growing in character, or just going through a phase. It will be interesting to find out in future installments.

Recommended.

Hughes' fifth novel to feature Dublin PI Ed Loy is and excellent addition to this series. I, for one, am glad I picked up a copy. It did not disappoint. The author has a way with words and he developed the characters and plot well. It was a compelling novel that kept me reading far into the night.