{"id":1030,"date":"2013-05-31T17:41:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T23:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2013-05-31T17:41:10","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T23:41:10","slug":"s-j-bolton-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/s-j-bolton-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"S.J. Bolton: Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bolton\u2019s reputation and popularity has been a slow burn, but she\u2019s catching on more and more with readers and if you like her \u2013 boy<\/i> \u2013 do you like her.\u00a0 Lately she\u2019s focused on a series rather than the amazing stand alone novels which began her career (Sacrifice, Awakening<\/i>), but her series is wonderful as well.\u00a0 Her Lacey Flint books began with the outstanding Jack the Ripper thriller, Now You See Me<\/i>, and she followed it up with the ultra creepy Dead Scared.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"lost-sjb\"<\/a>Well, she\u2019s put Lacey through the wringer and this novel seems to be the one where she\u2019s trying to set Lacey back to rights.\u00a0 It\u2019s certainly original to have the main series character be both so troubled and so actually physically tormented just by way of doing her job.\u00a0 Lacey is part of the police force, ending up on a big case in the first novel by virtue of having a victim literally die in her arms; in the second, she\u2019s undercover, and becomes the victim herself; in the third, she\u2019s literally, as the title suggests, \u201clost.\u201d\u00a0 She\u2019s not the only lost one here, of course, but it becomes a theme of the book.<\/p>\n

Bolton is a true narrative genius.\u00a0 She\u2019s very good at other aspects of telling stories as well \u2013 she\u2019s wonderful at character, she\u2019s wonderful at setting \u2013 but it\u2019s the way her novels fit together, suspense building from suspense in unexpected ways, that really set her books apart from the ordinary.\u00a0 This novel is no different from its predecessors in its excellence.\u00a0 And as usual she doesn\u2019t shy away from any aspects of her story that might seem, shall we say, over the top.<\/p>\n

The central story concerns a number of missing young boys who are later discovered dead.\u00a0 The over the top bit is that the killer seems obsessed mainly with blood, causing a press furor marking the killer as a vampire.\u00a0 This frustrates and angers the police to no end, and they willingly call in a profiler.\u00a0 Bolton uses her usual deft, dark humor to mark the entrance of the profiler, who turns out to be a good member of the investigative team.<\/p>\n

The main character turns out to be Barney, a young boy who has a little bit of OCD, is very smart, and whose Dad is mysteriously missing a few nights a week.\u00a0 Barney cleans the house and follows an exact routine to stay in control of the situation.\u00a0 Barney, as it happens, lives next door to Lacey and they are watching each other.<\/p>\n

Lacey is on extended leave following the events of the previous book; she\u2019s being watched by her police mentor and aspiring lover, Mark Joesbury.\u00a0 Lacey, knowing about the missing boys, keeps a bit of an eye on Barney; Barney, on his hand, notices Joesbury keeping an eye on Lacey.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Barney and his buddies are intent on finding out where the dead boys \u2013 who were just their age \u2013 were found, and they start sneaking out at night to do it.\u00a0 This is naturally quite dangerous and they end up finding a body themselves, which leads to all sorts of complications, primarily for Barney.\u00a0 The permutations of \u201clost\u201d when it comes to Barney and some of his friends are varied.\u00a0 The question turns out to be, whose soul is the most <\/i>lost?<\/p>\n

Lacey is using a prison source to try and understand the mind of the person who took the boys; her help, as far as the detective in charge of the case is concerned, is unwanted, but Lacey\u2019s a smart investigator and she\u2019s able to think of a slant no one else had thought of.\u00a0 Bolton casts her net wide, pulling in a number of believable red herrings and false leads.\u00a0 She\u2019s able to make the ultimate chase and capture extremely suspenseful as well as moving; partially because the characters she\u2019s delineated are so strong and memorable.\u00a0 Like many of Bolton\u2019s previous characters, Barney is a wonder. I grew to love him as I was reading the book, and you probably will too.\u00a0 This is another great effort from a terrifically talented writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bolton\u2019s reputation and popularity has been a slow burn, but she\u2019s catching on more and more with readers and if you like her \u2013 boy \u2013 do you like her.\u00a0 Lately she\u2019s focused on a series rather than the amazing stand alone novels which began her career (Sacrifice, Awakening), but her series is wonderful as … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-british"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}