A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis

Description
A girl missing
A woman, searching
A killer, planning…

A thrilling new FBI series for fans of Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter.

FBI Agent Elsa Myers finds missing people.
She knows how it feels to be lost…

Though her father lies dying in a hospital north of New York City, Elsa cannot refuse a call for help. A teenage girl has gone missing from Forest Hills, Queens, and during the critical first hours of the case, a series of false leads hides the fact that she did not go willingly.

With each passing hour, as the hunt for Ruby deepens into a search for a man who may have been killing for years, the case starts to get underneath Elsa’s skin. Everything she has buried – her fraught relationship with her sister and niece, her self-destructive past, her mother’s death – threatens to resurface, with devastating consequences.

In order to save the missing girl, she may have to lose herself…and return to the darkness she’s been hiding from for years.

Review

This book is the first involving FBI Agent Elsa Myers. Karen Ellis is developing the characters well. Elsa may be a bit difficult to empathise with initially but she grows on you. The other characters Lex, the detective she is partnered with; The other members of the task force; Mel, Elsa’s niece; Elsa’s father and sister they all need to grow if they are to feature in what will surely become a series.

Elsa is part of an FBI rapid response unit who work missing child cases alongside the relevant police force.  Although she is at the bedside of her terminally sick father she is still called in on a case of a girl, Ruby, who has gone missing.

Elsa lives for her work, she lives to find missing children so barely hesitates to accept the case but it proves to be difficult to keep work and her private life, especially her dark past, separate and Lex is quite intrusive and that is blurring the lines even more.

This book is gripping, tense and deals with difficult themes but there are also some lighter moments. It is well written by Karen Ellis.

Rating: 4*

Information

With thanks to the publisher via NetGalley for an eARC of this book in return for an honest review.

Hardcover: 295 pages
Publisher: Mulholland Books; 1 edition (2 Jan. 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316505668
ISBN-13: 978-0316505666

Mulholland Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group.

http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/books/fall-2017-winter-2018/a-map-of-the-dark-karen-ellis/

Author: https://www.karenellisbooks.com/       https://www.katialief.com/

Karen Ellis is a pseudonym of author Katia Lief. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and The Authors Guild. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.