I voluntarily read an early copy of this book.
The Sleeping Girls by Rita Herron Series: Detective Ellie Reeves #9
Published by Bookouture on January 22, 2024
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The young girl looked so innocent, like a sleeping angel. Kelsey lay on a bed of white sheets, golden hair fanned across the pillow, eyes closed, pale lips pressed together. A white teddy bear was tucked under her slender arm… “My baby, she’s dead” her distraught mother choked out.
When the call comes in that fifteen-year-old Kelsey Tiller has gone missing from her bedroom in the middle of the night, Detective Ellie Reeves rushes to talk to her distraught parents. They tell her that Kelsey, a slender blond with green eyes and a timid smile, had plans to go shopping for her homecoming dress the next day, insisting she would have no reason to run away. But when neighbors report seeing Kelsey with a secret boyfriend, Ellie wonders how much Kelsey really told her parents.
Ellie is determined to find Kelsey’s boyfriend and interviews her friends and teachers at school. But just as she is making headway with the case, she receives some devastating news. Kelsey’s parents have received a photo of their daughter lying on a bed with white sheets over her body, skin ghostly pale under the freckles dotting her nose, her precious life snuffed out.
Desperate to find answers for those who loved Kelsey, Ellie studies the picture and realizes that her body has been posed in the same way as a teenage girl murdered ten years earlier. And when she learns Darnell, the killer in that case, has just been released from prison, fear crawls through her. Could Darnell have stolen another innocent life?
But just as Ellie thinks she has cracked the case, Kelsey’s best friend Ruby is snatched from her home, and Darnell has an unbreakable alibi. Haunted by Kelsey’s ashen face, Ellie knows she must race against time to find Ruby alive. And when she discovers one of her team is hiding critical information, she realizes she needs to act alone. But is she dealing with a twisted copycat killer or is the danger far closer to home?
Mind tingling drama and suspense at it’s best! Rita Herron always delivers when it comes to sending Detective Ellie Reeves into the heart of a case we think we know the background on and then turning the case upside down with unexpected twists and diabolical criminals. I like that we are finally getting a little closer to a Ellie/Cord/Derrick resolution, but really want that happily ever after for someone soon.
I highly recommend this book as well as the entire series to anyone who enjoys a close knit group of characters who support each other and the town as they track down criminals who terrorize their small town time and again. Hints of romance here and there, but mostly an addictive thriller/whodunnit each time.
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