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 a kidnapping of another girl, a prominent businessman’s teenage daughter.
At home, Black is struggling with 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 tries to identify the unclaimed child, Black begins to realise that her case and the kidnapping may be linked by events from the grimmest days of the country’s recent history – events that also defined her own trouble childhood.
Little Girl Lost is a devastating crime thriller about corruption, greed and vengeance, and a father’s love for his daughter.
Effortlessly blending Black's personal woes into her professional life, McGilloway weaves a taut police procedural in an unadorned style that belies the stories complexity... McGilloway has tapped into a fascinating and febrile setting...It's an impressive statement of intent from an author whose reputation grows with each release.
Irish Independent
This standalone thriller is cleverly constructed, packed with vibrant and believable characters and admirably free of the clichés of the genre... It confirms him as one of the most original voices in the notably expanding field of Irish crime fiction and this reviewer, for one, would like to read more of DS Lucy Black.
Sunday Business Post
Brian McGilloway's Little Girl Lost (Macmillan) is a police procedural set in contemporary Derry, as DS Black investigates the disappearance of a young girl who can identify a killer. A standalone from his critically acclaimed Inspector Devlin series, this is an assured and grittily realistic tale from an author who is being compared to James Lee Burke and Ian Rankin.