Little Girl Lost (DS Lucy Black, #1)

Midwinter. A child is found wandering in an ancient woodland, her hands covered in blood. But it is not her own.

Unwilling, or unable, to speak, the only person she seems to trust is the young officer who rescued her, Detective Sergeant Lucy Black. Soon afterwards, DS Black is baffled to find herself suddenly moved from a high-profile case involving the kidnapping of another girl, a prominent businessman's teenage daughter.

Black's problems are not only professional: she's caring for her increasingly unstable father, and trying to avoid conflict with her frosty mother - who also happens to be the Assistant Chief Constable. As she struggles to identify the unclaimed child, Black begins to realise that her case and the kidnapping may be linked by events that occurred during the grimmest days of the country's recent history - events that also defined her own troubled childhood.

Little Girl Lost is a devastating crime thriller about corruption, greed and vengeance, and a father's love for his daughter.