G. D. Sanders

The Taken Girls is a novel with a truly odd villain. The story begins in 2010 when a teenage girl is abducted. Despite the best efforts of the police, the girl remains missing for over 30 days. Suddenly, without warning, the girl is returned, seemingly unharmed. For 10 years, the abductor remained silent and no more girls go missing. Then in present day, the Canterbury police are given a fresh challenge when a new teenage girl suddenly goes missing. The case falls to Edina Ogbourne. She has just relocated to Canterbury to take over as Detective Inspector. She must do her best to run her unit despite being the odd man out.

Despite the best efforts of Edina and her team, leads in the case of the missing teenager remain elusive. After about 2 weeks missing, the teenager is returned seemingly unharmed, and within days, another girl goes missing. It soon becomes apparent that the returned girls have come back fundamentally changed. The first taken teenager shows up at the police station pregnant. An exam reveals that the teenager is still a virgin. This raises a whole new set of questions about what kind of monster they are searching for. The race is now on to rescue the next missing teen before the abductor has a chance to inseminate her as well. The story is engaging and fast paced. This is a fresh version of a disturbed mind that I haven’t seen before. We see all sides of the story as we are privy to the inner thoughts of the lead detective, the teenage girl who is missing, and the abductor. A strong, fun read.… (mehr)

There's a refreshing difference to the crimes in The Taken Girls. A teenage girl has been taken but isn't being harmed in any way, except she's pregnant and doesn't know how it can have happened (yes, really!). It turns out that this is not the first time that this has happened and DI Edina Ogborne is the one tasked to lead a team in the search for the perpetrator.

Ed, as she likes to be known, is newly promoted to the DI job and new to the force in Canterbury, after being forced to leave the Met due to some rather dodgy liaisons. I wish I could say that she learned her lesson but I think she's one of those impetuous people who jump in first and consider later. I did find her an intriguing character though and can imagine the author bringing her back in further stories.

The rest of her team were a bit hit and miss for me. They didn't seem to have a great deal to recommend them in many ways although they did all start to work well together as the case progressed.

I'll be honest, this book took me a little bit of getting into but by the half way point I was much more engrossed in the investigation and I particularly enjoyed the details and methodology of how the team got their information.

As I say, I can see this being book one in a series, as all the characters' stories were left sort of open-ended in that something happened in each of their lives that could easily be taken further. I think it would be good to see what happens to them next.

This is a solid crime debut, it's not a thriller in that it's not gory and there's no violence, but it's got an intriguing hook to the story and a promising protagonist in Ed.… (mehr)