Little Girl Lost [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Susan Kelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

News travels fast in the peaceful estate of Peabody. So when young Emilia Troy is kidnapped, everyone knows that social worker and neighbour Joshua Salem is the prime suspect. The tragic history of Emilia’s father, Roger, whose career as a great scientist faltered after the loss of his first wife and pushed him towards a slow decline into insanity, is also well known. The case is turned over to Superintendent Gregory Summers who must solve Emilia’s disappearance by trawling through his suspects’ murky lives - the over protective social worker, the lonely nurse, the jilted foster parents. As the investigation progresses, a manhunt through the hoof and mouth infected countryside has Summers in the company of a ghost from his own past, Chief Inspector Megan Davies. Personal relations and professionalism overlap as Summers soon learns that behind every respectable facade, dark secrets lurk.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Superintendent Gregory Summers finally has a chief inspector, Megan Davies, a woman whose past briefly touched his. Megan's own life is very complicated: a father slipping loudly into dementia; a recently defunct marriage that brings her to Newbury. The investigation of the abduction of a child, Emilia, by her social worker ends up not only touching all the threads of Summers' and Davies' lives but unraveling the complexities of the child's as well: her brilliant scientist father's collapse after his wife's untimely death; his marriage to the unlovely nurse who cared for him; the wealthy, neurasthenic couple who were Emilia's foster parents. Kelly knows how tangled even the quietest life can be, and she lets the marks of living show in the demeanors of her characters. Their interaction is sure and true, and even the briefest of offhand appearances have an air of quickening about them. The plotlines come together in ways that surprise but do not stretch the bounds of credulity, and the writing is swift and sharp. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Kelly's writing is mesmerizing. It is clear and perfectly paced with characters that stay in one's mind long after the book is finished.' Deadly Pleasures 'There's a welcome new detective, Superintendent Gregory Summers, in Susan Kelly's new novel' The Daily Express --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 407 pages
• Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750520019
• ISBN-13: 978-0750520010
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,723,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Involving but too much coincidence, July 5, 2003

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Little Girl Lost (Gregory Summers Series) (Hardcover)

A little girl, Emilia, has vanished and the police are looking for her social worker. But the girl's family is also suspicious--her father has recently been released from a mental institution and her step-mother is nobody's idea of a kind and gentle soul. Or could Emilia's former foster parents have decided to reclaim the daughter they hoped to adopt for their own? Superintendent Gregory Summers, together with assistant Barbara and new deputy Megan Davies must track down the evidence, all the while hoping that the little girl is only lost--that no one has killed a child.

Author Susan Kelly writes convincingly of troubled families, and all of the families in LITTLE GIRL LOST are troubled indeed. Summers is having an affair with his ex-daughter-in-law, a woman twenty years his junior. Davies has recently separated from her husband and is now dealing with her father's increasing dementia. Step-mother Concepta worries that Roger married her only to satisfy the social workers that he could provide a secure home--and that she'll be left behind as well if Emilia is truly gone. Kelly's writing involves the reader in these troubled characters, making us care that their problems are resolved.

In solving the mystery, Kelly relies far to heavily on coincidence. It seems that Summers or Davies need merely meet a minor character to be certain that that character will soon provide valuable clues. While the police do luck into evidence all of the time, it hardly makes for a compelling mystery when so much of the evidence shows up through stumbling around rather than through hard work. How likely is it, for example, that Davies's demented father just happen to wander through a field where a body was buried and that he be stopped by a crazed woman in that very field, just so the police could find the body? Unfortunately, LITTLE GIRL LOST is simply filled with this type of detecting--pulling the reader out of what is otherwise a very satisfying read.