Netgalley had a pearl of a book again that you can request to read; I’ve been reading this series a while now and I like them very very much. It’s by Patricia Gibney whom is an Irish author so, when I started the series, I had to look up some of the pronunciations name-wise.

It’s the 16th book in the Detective Lottie Parker series and is called ‘The Family Secret’ which will be released on the 19th of May. In my opinion you could read it as a standalone since this is about a new crime taking place but then you do miss what happened in Lottie’s personal life and how the team came together, if you are okay with that than knock yourself out.

In the previous book Lottie and Boyd broke up after realizing they had very different priorities and those differences were causing a lot of friction. Honestly, it was rather annoying to read about their fights, it got rather childish. After they broke up, I knew the love wasn’t lost, but sometimes you have to let go of something if it doesn’t work even if you love that person very much.

Let’s go back to the not so quiet life of Lottie Parker in the small ‘in the Arsehole of nowhere’ Ragmullin located in Ireland. Live at the Parker residence has been hard; Chloe applied to the Garda College in Templemore and got in, which means she has moved to Templemore. Sean has gone to college and is staying with Newlyweds Grace (Boyd’s sister) and Brian because housing near college is a nightmare. So that leaves Lottie, her eldest daughter Katie and her grandson Louis and sometimes Lottie’s mother Rose who is suffering from dementia.

It’s Lottie’s day off but because Boyd isn’t picking up his phone, she gets the call from Kirby; Day of or not, she has to come and the scene is a gruesome one. Arriving at the scene and going in she get’s the warning. In the living room everything looks immaculate; nothing out of place. Well, except a dead man on the couch; looks like he slit his wrist, the knife still at his side. The kitchen is a mess, looks like a party has taken place the previous day – A bouncy castle in the garden and a big balloon arch. Dreading what she will find upstairs, she better get this over with. In the main bedroom a woman has been strangled, nothing else seems amiss. Just a discarded cushion on the floor but the rest is clean. She knows there is one victim left, going to the only room left… A child’s bedroom where a girl lays on her bed in a frilly pink party dress that looks vintage. Also, nothing out of place. She let’s SOCO’s do their job and waits for the postmortem results. It looks like familicide that’s where one of the parents kills their family and lastly him or herself. But is also looks to staged.

The family that died, the Healy’s had indeed just celebrated their child’s 12th birthday; but all the presents and cards are missing which is strange. The child Freya and mother Caroline we’re best friends with Sadie and Lily Clarke so that’s where Lottie goes to break the news. Sadie is beside herself, not knowing how she should break the news to Lily. A couple hours pass and Lottie get’s a call from Sadie saying that her daughter is missing; a day after that she goes missing as well and Lottie and her team are at a stand-still. They can’t seem to figure out what happened or where Sadie and Lily have disappeared to.

Chloe, Lottie’s daughter hears about the murders and has been at a course about cold cases and knows there is one case, 20 years prior that has a lot of similarities but she needs to know what the scene looked like and needs to see the crime scene photos. She knows her mother won’t give them to her, Boyd would blab to her mother same as Kirby which leaves McKeown. She meets him somewhere halfway but what happens is something no one sees coming.

This case is an absolute shite show, Lottie thinks. A family has been murdered, two people are missing and 3 people have been stabbed including a member of her team and her family. Eventually when people finally start with the truth the pieces of a very dark puzzle finally fall into place.

This book was very good, it had my attention the entire way – a book focused on crime and not on Lottie and Boyd’s relationship. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger and I really want to know what’s going to happen, can’t wait for the next one.

Solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars for The Family Secret by Patricia Gibney.