Hi, everyone!
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for HER FORGOTTEN SHADOW (Detective Delaney Pace Book #4) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins on this Bookouture Books-On-Tour blog.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section, and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
A violent storm erupts over the small town of Kearny, bringing a devastating mudslide. Amongst the debris, the worn threads of a child’s blanket, hides the body of a young girl, her long dark hair matted with the fallen earth that killed her.
When the rescue team find rope marks around the ankles of the teenage girl, they call in Detective Delaney Pace. Fourteen-year-old Marilyn Littlewolf went missing five years ago after moving to Kearny from a local reservation. Fearing she was dead, nobody expected Marilyn to ever come home. So where has she been? And why is her body covered in bruises?
Delaney thinks Marilyn was held captive in the mountains that tower above the town, but with acres of remote wilderness to search, the investigation seems impossible. Diving into Marilyn’s case, one name stands out that makes her blood turn cold as ice: her friend and longstanding babysitter to her two adopted daughters, Skeeter Rawlins.
Racing to his home, she finds it in disarray, it’s clear he left in a hurry. In disbelief, Delaney takes in the empty whisky bottles and wonders if she was wrong to trust her reliable old friend with her darling girls?
As evidence piles up against Skeeter, Delaney’s heart shatters when another girl is reported missing. Tracing her to a remote cabin deep in the woods, she fears she’s about to finally uncover the truth about her once-trusted friend. But when she bursts into the disheveled shack nothing could have prepared her for what she finds. Was she wrong to suspect Skeeter as the twisted mind behind the missing girls? And is she already too late to save another innocent life?
Purchase Link: https://geni.us/B0DCCB5WR9social
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
HER FORGOTTEN SHADOW (Detective Delaney Pace Book #4) by Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a fast-paced, intense small town police procedural. Delaney and Leo are back in action investigating a series of crimes with young Crow heritage girls disappearing from Kearney, Wyoming. This book can be read as a standalone for the crime thriller plot, but this is a series with characters evolving throughout and their interactions impact the plot at times in other books. I have enjoyed reading them all in order.
When workers go to clear a landslide off the road after a storm, they discover the body of a young girl in the mud. Delaney and Leo discover it is a young girl who disappeared five years ago and was thought to be with her absentee father in Montana on the Crow reservation. Where has she really been? When another girl goes missing and is found dead at the base of a cliff, some of the clues are pointing to Delaney’s friend and babysitter, P.I. Skeeter Rawlins who is missing with another missing young Crow girl.
While some of the evidence leads Delaney and Leo to a teacher at the middle school who has a connection with all three girls, there is still a danger lurking in the mountains. It is a race to save the missing girl and unravel who is responsible.
I love this exciting series not only for the interesting crime plots, but also for the emotional character interactions. Delaney and her girls always make me laugh as well as feel the emotional ups and downs of raising young girls. Leo and Delaney have a relationship that is so frustrating and yet realistic. I do wish Delaney had a little more faith in Leo and not always jump to conclusions brought on by someone else’s interference. The crime plot in this book was intense and heart-breaking. It moves at an ever-increasing pace right up to the conclusion and was very realistic. I am looking forward to reading about the next criminal investigation in Kearney, finding out if Delaney and Leo work out their relationship, and seeing if Delaney and Skeeter discover if her mother is truly still alive.
I highly recommend this harrowing small town crime thriller/police procedural! I am anxiously waiting for the next book in the series.
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About the Author
Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today bestselling and Silver Falchion Best Mystery winning mystery/thriller/suspense author (and recovering attorney and investigator) who splits her time between an off-the-grid lodge on the face of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains and a rustic cabin on Maine’s Lake Mooselookmeguntic with her husband, kids and grandkids, rescue pets and sled dog, and draft cross horses.
Social Media Links
Website: https://pamelafaganhutchins.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pamela.fagan.hutchins.author