Patrick Kenzie and wife Angela Gennaro shared a long and eventful history of criminal investigations and detective work before becoming lovers and settling down as parents. These days, she battles boredom as a stay-at-home housewife and he takes on safe and soulless cases in the hopes of landing job security and a half-decent paycheque.

The sixth in the series (but the first for this reviewer), it’s clear that there’s a lot of history, regret and exhaustion, particularly in Kenzie. He’s jaded and ageing faster than he’d like: tracking down embezzlers, cheaters and insurance fraud has left him feeling trapped and disgusted. In their glory days 13 years earlier, Kenzie and Gennaro were on the case of missing four-year-old Amanda Mc- Cready, risking everything to track her down. Amanda was found and returned home to her addicted and neglectful mother. 13 years later, brilliant student Amanda has a Harvard scholarship waiting but has disappeared again. Her aunt accosts Kenzie and insists that he is obligated to find her and do things right this time. Re-opening old wounds raises all kinds of questions about the morality of returning children to birth parents who are incapable of looking after themselves properly and how the dry machinations of the law don’t always result in justice.

Regrets aside, Kenzie and Gennaro have more to risk now, with car chases, shooting and threats made not just against their safety but also their young daughter’s. As they delve deeper, it seems clear that Amanda doesn’t want to be found and has bigger secrets of her own to hide. Written in a gritty, modern gum-shoe style, Lehane clearly has a cinematic eye as the story unfolds with a few red herrings in amongst the bloody murder scenes. Some of the scenarios seem highly unlikely but, as with a movie, it’s all done to entertain and keep the reader (or cinema goer) on the edge of their seat.