Book #82 A Map of The Dark

A Map of the Dark by Karen Ellis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton, Mulholland Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Is this the first in a new series perhaps? It bears all the hallmarks and the notes do say a thrilling new FBI series…

A Map of The Dark introduces FBI agent Elsa Myers. An agent with a troubled past, a past riven by physical abuse from her mother. Elsa specialises in finding people. Detective Lex Cole asks specifically for Elsa to help find a missing seventeen-year-old girl. He knows of her reputation. Their investigation indicates the work of a ‘repeater’; other girls are known to have gone missing.

This is a slow starter; indeed the first seventeen chapters or so look back on Elsa’s early years and that of her sister - an abusive mother and a hapless father, Roy. The mother is now dead and Roy is dying from cancer. Perhaps rather too much of the story is spent on providing this background. (A protagonist with a similar past to that of DI Helen Grace…) But then, Chapter eighteen onward and suddenly the brakes are off…

A Map of The Dark becomes a helter-skelter ride, the chapters shorten, the pace quickens - often no time to catch ones breath. The plot becomes dark and disturbing as the investigating team race to find the missing girls before it’s too late.

And there is a twist in the tale that is not entirely unforeseen but completes a darned good thriller.


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