Sunday 26 February 2017

Book ~ "The Forgotten Girls" (2017) Owen Laukkanen

From GoodreadsShe was a forgotten girl, a runaway found murdered on the High Line train through the northern Rocky Mountains and, with little local interest, put into a dead file. But she was not alone. When Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere of the joint FBI-BCA violent crime force stumble upon the case, they discover a horror far greater than anyone expected - a string of murders on the High Line, all of them young women drifters whom no one would notice. 

But someone has noticed now. Through the bleak midwinter and a frontier land of forbidding geography, Stevens and Windermere follow a frustratingly light trail of clues - and where it ends, even they will be shocked. 

Kirk Stevens is a special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and his partner is Carla Windermere, who is an FBI special agent.  Their latest case is the rape and brutal murder of a young runaway who was a train hopper.  As they investigate, they discover there are more than 25 unsolved cases of women who had disappeared or had been  raped and murdered along the train line in the Northern Rocky Mountains.

I liked this book.  Though this is the sixth in the Stevens and Windermere series (I've read them all), it works as a stand alone.  If you want to get to know Stevens and Windermere, you should read the previous ones to find out the history and dynamics between them because the author doesn't dwell on any of that in this story.  I liked the writing style and found the storyline interesting ... I didn't realize there was a train hopping culture.  It's written in third person perspective with a focus on the various characters, including the murderer.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

The book is dedicated to the memory of the missing and murdered woman of Vancouver, BC's Downtown Eastside and Stevie Cameron's book, On the Farm, was used as background for this story.

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