The Girl With No Name by Lisa Regan
In The Girl With No Name (Bookouture), bestselling author Lisa Regan returns to the town of Denton, PA, and its newly appointed police chief, Josie Quinn.
Josie was close to becoming a victim herself in capturing a serial killer who abducted and killed girls for pleasure. She thinks the nightmare of such murders is behind her and the denizens of Denton. But then a baby’s birth starts a string of kidnappings and homicides that once again put Josie in a race to save lives.
As Denton residents watch news coverage of the trial of serial killer Aaron King, they have no idea that the man known as the Interstate Killer is connected to their sleepy town. While her officers watch the trial unfold on TV, Josie arrives at the scene of a brutal attack — someone assaulted a pregnant woman who is now close to death. As Josie investigates the scene, she realizes the woman had given birth in the house and the newborn is nowhere to be found.
Without leads in the infant’s kidnapping and the brutal attack on his mother, the only way forward is to determine the identity of the baby’s father, which proves more difficult than Josie imagined. The list of potential fathers is astounding — both the number of men and their names. Their relationships with the baby’s mother confuse Josie, and once again, the investigation becomes personal. She can’t understand how her deceased husband, Ray, is involved even after his death. He’s like a ghost still haunting her life.
SUICIDE, SECRECY AND SUSPENDED MATRIMONY
Meanwhile, Josie’s fiancé, state trooper Luke Creighton, has been distant for months — ever since his best friend, Brady, killed his wife and then himself. She’s tried to talk to him, but it’s like trying to penetrate a steel bank vault; she can’t reach him. He won’t let her share in a part of his life that she can’t see. Samples of their wedding invitations sit on her living room coffee table, ignored by Luke. But as Luke points out, Josie has kept secrets of her own.
“You come off just fine, and you handle all your shit, but whatever happened to you when you were a kid — it did some damage. Why don’t any of your closets have doors, Josie? What is the scar on the side of your face really from? How many times have you been to Ray’s grave?”
Josie knows Luke is right and isn’t sure if they can save their relationship that teeters on the edge of a steep cliff. Regan writes, “Maybe she had been so busy worrying about Luke finding out about the skeletons in her closet that it had never occurred to her that he might have some of his own.”
As Josie’s team investigates, more people disappear and clues lead back to Luke’s friend Brady and a young woman no one can identify who’s in the middle of everything. But the girl claims she can’t remember who she is or why she was present at the crime scenes.
THE HUNT HITS HOME
As Josie follows the trail of bodies left in the wake of a murderer and tries to find those abducted from her town, she isn’t sure who is predator and who is prey. Between a local stripper, a billionaire tech guru and a dangerous casino mogul, she’s got so many moving parts she’s not sure she can find the connection.
And how are they related to the teens who recently died in multiple freak accidents? How far will she have to go before everyone is safe again?
In this second installment of the Josie Quinn series, Regan skillfully constructs a fly-through-the-pages tale that will have your mind racing with the possibilities — who could have done it and how? She adeptly shows readers Josie’s complex inner strengths and weaknesses while simultaneously demonstrating her toughness and resolve. Regan connects the plot-dots with a thread so thin you don’t realize how details are so seamlessly woven together until the last perpetrator is revealed.
Fans of no-nonsense detective thrillers, especially those with a kick-ass female hero, will love solving this deadly puzzle with Josie, and the unexpected conclusion will surprise you.
