Book #39 Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You would hardly want to go on holiday to Exmoor after reading Belinda Bauer's trilogy. Six children were buried on the moor in Blacklands, eight vulnerable victims met their ends in its follow up, Darkside, and the curse isn't over yet for the residents of Shipcott, the Somerset village where the author sets her thrillers: now their children are being stolen from cars and replaced with a note: "You don't love her", or him, or them... The familiar characters are here - Steven Lamb, the boy who wrote to a serial killer in Blacklands, his younger brother Davey, Mum and Nan, DI Reynolds (who failed to catch the last killer to terrorise Shipcott) and of course, Jonas Holly. Bauer's renditions of a teenager falling in love are pitch-perfect, the jealous younger brother, the clash between old and new, locals and incomers, money and lack of it. This clash lies at the heart of the novel providing a motivation for the kidnapper's actions. And here, the novel becomes cloaked in the macabre almost descending into horror - some scenes are really creepy. And the latter part of the book ties up so many loose ends resulting in a satisfying conclusion. For plausibility's sake though, it might be time Bauer found a new location. Perhaps she has?

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