Her Pretty Bones is the third in the DI Gina Harte series, and begins with an emaciated young woman falling from the back of a moving van. Too badly injured to live, she is only able to utter two words to the witness who finds her. “Save her” and with those two words, Gina knows that a clock is ticking on another young woman's life.
Domestic slavery is a subject that's not explored much in fiction, with a lot of human slavery stories focusing on the sexual aspects of such crimes, but it's a crime which certainly isn't confined to the Middle or Far East. The young women in this case think they're being offered legitimate work as carers for a disabled woman with Huntingdon's disease, a condition which in its later stages is often too much for families to cope with.
Instead, the victims end up addicted to heroin and locked in with their patient, their only option to care for her in order to get their next meal… and their next fix.
I found something of a plot hole in the patient not receiving any visits from medical professionals who would have noticed something was wrong: generally it's a condition of continuing to receive disability and carer's pensions that regular medical checkups are made.
Generally, though, this is a good police procedural with some interesting twists and a likeable protagonist in DI Harte. I'll give it four stars.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.