Darkness, Danger, and Deadly Secrets in “Vanishing Girls”

In Vanishing Girls (Grand Central Publishing), bestselling author Lisa Regan takes readers into the heart and mind of Detective Josie Quinn, a woman who admits her childhood damaged her, and she’s nowhere near perfect.

Josie might have anger issues, but why shouldn’t she? She’s separated from her police officer husband, Ray, because of his drinking problem and his affair with a local stripper. Then there was the moment when Josie snapped, using excessive force against a woman during a call involving the assault of a young child — Josie knocked the woman’s teeth out with an elbow. Her captain had no choice but to suspend her from the force. 

Now Josie doesn’t know what to do with herself — the entire town of Denton, Pennsylvania is looking for Isabelle Coleman, a girl who vanished from her front yard five days ago. Josie’s a doer, thriving on action. She can’t sit idly by, but there’s only so much she can accomplish without her badge. And she doesn’t understand why the police investigation seems to be dragging or why they won’t let her join the search party as a private citizen.

IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

But Josie finds herself at the heart of the investigation when an SUV almost runs her over after its occupants were shot with rifles. Why is the missing girl’s history teacher in the truck with gang members? 

Then an unusual but violent murder occurs at the nursing home while she’s visiting her grandmother, and Josie is once again in the middle of it.

Josie’s chief orders her to stay out of the investigation, but she insists it isn’t her fault. She was at the “wrong place, wrong time — or the right place at the right time, depending on how you look at it.” 

Josie can’t stay out of the investigation even if she wanted to, which she doesn’t. And one thing her horrible mother always told her still rings true, “You can’t always be all roses and sweetness. That don’t get shit done.” 

As she struggles with being on the sidelines, she continues to grapple with what happened to her relationship with Ray. Although Josie is now engaged to a state trooper, Luke, she doesn’t know what she’ll do without Ray in her life. He’s been her rock since they were nine years old, the “sweet boy who had saved her from her childhood nightmare, who had loved her in spite of the bad things that had happened to her.” He’d stood by her ever since. That’s why she can’t understand Ray’s betrayal. She might forgive his infidelity, but what he did that one night doomed their marriage.

MORE THAN AN INTIMATE BETRAYAL

Josie discovers that Isabelle’s disappearance isn’t an isolated occurrence in their small Pennsylvania town — there were two other women who disappeared before her. She finds clues that are too coincidental to dismiss, but she can’t connect the dots. Although her chief forbids her from investigating, she knows there is something nefarious going on right under the surface. The more she researches, the more facts she gathers that point to a cover-up by local law enforcement. And the possibility that Ray might be involved sickens her.

Why does the name Ramona keep coming up in her investigation? The history teacher had uttered the name before lapsing into a coma, and now it is painted in blood on a wall in the nursing home. Who is Ramona, and how is she involved with girls vanishing in their small town?

Josie knows the woods around Denton — she and Ray have explored them since they were kids. Could the forest hold the secret to the missing girls? What monsters are hiding behind the foliage?

As Josie zeroes in on the abductors, she doesn’t know who she can trust. With a target on her back, can she uncover the truth and find Isabelle Coleman before they come for her? 

Regan intertwines the brutality of sex offenders, the sadistic desires of sociopaths, and the fight for justice in an adrenaline-pumping read that you can’t put down until the last girl is found. And fans will be ecstatic to get their hands on the eight books that follow in this series featuring justice-enforcer Josie Quinn, including the latest, Save Her Soul, out this week.

Related Books

Save Her Soul by Lisa Regan | Bookouture, August 12, 2020

When the body of a young girl floats to a river’s surface, it has all the appearances of a tragic accident. When Detective Josie Quinn and her team investigate, they discover that her death wasn’t an accident at all … and she had been keeping a heart-breaking secret. Worse, Josie’s dead ex-husband, Ray, had been dating the victim before she left town for good. When Josie learns that the victim’s mother may have been at the heart of a terrible scandal at the time of her daughter’s death, Josie starts asking around town. But the only person willing to talk is murdered moments before giving crucial information. It’s clear that someone is prepared to keep on killing to stop the truth from getting out. Digging deep into memories of her own past with Ray is the only advantage Josie has on this twisted killer … but at what cost?