Ransomed (The Missing Children Case Files – Book 1)
Some secrets are too big to bury…
Investigative journalist Emma Hunter never thought she’d be a bestselling author. Especially not for a blistering exposé of the brutal horrors committed at a children’s home.
Some secrets breed in the dark…
All she wants is to return home to the anchoring salt air and solitude of Weymouth where questions still fester unanswered and a twenty-year-old secret binds her to the beach.
And some of them always escape…
But then she finds herself sucked into the chaos of another cold case and soon realises the search for the missing girl will not only unearth the rot ravaging the safety of children across the south of England, but could even solve the mystery that has tortured her since she was seven years old…
Ransomed marks the beginning of a nerve-shredding new crime series of feral reckonings and found family in the face of harrowing inhumanity, perfect for fans of Angela Marsons and Ann Cleeves.
My Review:
Investigative journalist Emma Hunter has spent the last three years working on a story about the abuse of children in a group home. Now the book is out and the guilty parties are finally brought to justice, she’s ready to turn her attention to the story she really wants to write, that of her sister, Anna, who went missing twenty years earlier. Approached by a wealthy old man and asked to look into the case of his kidnapped granddaughter, Emma is slowly drawn in and agrees to investigate.
There are some heart-wrenching scenes here, and some tough topics addressed. Emma is far from being any sort of intrepid heroine; she’s quiet and frumpy, a cardigan-wearing type with a bad habit of sucking on her sleeve when she gets nervous, but she’s also clever and immensely kind, and people seem to trust and open up to her instinctively.
I didn’t see the resolution coming, nor the twist in the case of Emma’s missing sister which is a thread that’s obviously going to be picked up in the next book in this series. I feel like the police officer assigned to assist Emma is going to play a bigger role, maybe as a love interest. This is a really great start to a series, with the major case in it wrapped up pretty neatly but all these other intriguing threads leaving the reader keen to learn more. I’d definitely have picked up the second book immediately if it was available when I read this one!
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.
Author Bio –
Hi, I’m M.A. Hunter and have been a huge fan of crime fiction since a young age, and always fancied the idea of trying to write some myself. That dream became a reality when One More Chapter signed The Missing Children Case Files series.
Born in Darlington in the north-east of England, I grew up in West London, and moved to Southampton to study law at university. It’s here I fell in love and have been married for fifteen years. We are now raising our two children, on the border of The New Forest where we enjoy going for walks amongst the wildlife. We regularly holiday across England, but have a particular affinity for the south coast, which formed the setting for the series, spanning from Devon to Brighton, and with a particular focus on Weymouth, one of our favourite towns.
When not writing, I regularly binge-watch the latest shows from streaming services, or have my head buried in the latest story from Angela Marsons, Simon Kernick, or Ann Cleeves.
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