I’ve been behind om my Helen Grace novels by M.J. Arlidge but, I can tackle one since I just finished Forget Me Not which is the twelfth one in the series.

I’ve always loved the books by Arlidge in the Helen Grace series but this one dragged on a bit, still a good one though!

There is a new Super Intendant in town and its someone younger than Helen and someone that has never walked the streets in uniform which gives you a couple of stripes against you in Helen’s book. How can someone take that position without ever having walked the streets? Someone that has zero knowledge in what is important and only looks at the political point of view of policing? SI Holmes wants the CID to work a shooting case; an obvious gang violence shooting but when Helen talks to a panicked woman in the station about her daughter gone missing, Helen isn’t in line with that SI Holmes wants.

Helen’s gut tells her that something about the disappearance of Naomi isn’t right and when checking Naomi’s last steps before disappearing it becomes clear that the girl has been kidnapped, but with Naomi’s background as to have run away from home months prior and having stayed with her druggy boyfriend; her team think this case doesn’t need the attention it’s getting now. The CID is divided, something Charlie Brooks (who is the boss of CID next to Helen) hasn’t felt before. When Jennings became part of the team, this whole divide started. Jennings always cutting corners, dangerous ones at that to get what he wants and the cost just doesn’t seem to matter, having taken some of his colleagues over to the dark side.

There is a young adult that has been released on probation that fits the bill, having stolen a van from his work that was supposed to cease to exist months ago put him on the CID radar. Zoned in on this young man he became the perfect scapegoat for the real perp.

Naomi isn’t the only girl taken, once Naomi opens her eyes in what she can only call some sort of prison is another girl called Mia. She’s in bad shape, medically. It eventually becomes clear for what purpose the man had taken Naomi; there is a whole network set up through Zoom where men can request things the man that has taken her has to do to Naomi (or Mia, depends on who’s turn it is). Both being minors makes these men pedophiles, sick people.

When Helen zeroes in on the perp, her team thinks she’s lost the plot because she wants to investigate someone within the police, she thinks is responsible for the kidnappings. With the team divided and Jennings riling the others up this case is a hard one to manage.

A wife that stands with her husband even though she knows he’s guilty but having been abused herself, thinks he is the only one she still has in this world.

Will they take this man down? Can they even outsmart one of their own? Will they find the girls alive?

Still a ⭐⭐⭐⭐ star read though!