The Secret Child by Caroline Mitchell @Caroline_writes

Book Description:

DI Amy Winter knows evil. She’s lived through it.

Four-year-old Ellen is snatched by a stranger in the dead of night. Her devastated mother, Nicole, receives four identical phials and a threatening note in a familiar scrawl that chills her to the bone. But she always knew this would happen. She’s been expecting it for years…

According to the note, one of the phials is poisoned. Nicole is given a deadly challenge: if she drinks one, the sadistic kidnapper will notify the police of Ellen’s location. The sender claims to be Luka Volkov but Luka is supposed to be dead, killed long ago in a fire that haunts all those involved.

DI Amy Winter is still reeling from the discovery that she is the daughter of a serial killer, and her childhood trauma only makes her more determined to bring Ellen home. When another child is taken, Amy finds herself in a race against time. To rescue the children, must she seek help from the one person she wants to forget…?

My Thoughts:

I absolutely loved the first book in the DI Amy Winter series and thought it would be pretty impossible to match it, never mind surpass it. The author has though, surpassed it that is.

There are so many things going for this book, especially for a crime thriller fanatic like me. I know Amy is still struggling with coming to terms with her true parentage, but I am loving it. It makes for some truly gripping reading. There isn’t just that though, the case that Amy and her team are working on is such a compelling read also. I was fascinated with the chapters in the past to do with Luka. It made me have mixed feelings about what was happening in the present day that’s for sure.

The Secret Child is a highly addictive read. The author has excelled what I would expect from a crime thriller by giving me way more than I could ever have imagined. The nature of the story line grabs hold of the reader from the first page. The author held me captive through out, not that I wanted to go anywhere as I was enjoying myself way to much to even think of putting this book down! A totally brilliant crime thriller.

My thanks to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in anyway.

The Secret Child is available to purchase from Amazon. (Please note that link used is an affiliate link).