Finders Keepers
Belinda Bauer
Finders Keepers
At the height of summer a dark shadow falls across Exmoor. Children are being stolen from cars. Each disappearance is marked only by a terse note - a brutal accusation. There are no explanations, no ransom demands... and no hope. Policeman Jonas Holly faces a precarious journey into the warped mind of the kidnapper if he's to stand any chance of catching him. But - still reeling from a personal tragedy - is Jonas really up to the task? Because there's at least one person on Exmoor who thinks that, when it comes to being the first line of defence, Jonas Holly may be the last man to trust...
3.4 out of 5 based on 6 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
Crime, Thrillers & Mystery |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
400 |
| RRP |
£14.99 |
| Date of Publication |
January 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-0593066904 |
| Publisher |
Bantam |
| |
At the height of summer a dark shadow falls across Exmoor. Children are being stolen from cars. Each disappearance is marked only by a terse note - a brutal accusation. There are no explanations, no ransom demands... and no hope. Policeman Jonas Holly faces a precarious journey into the warped mind of the kidnapper if he's to stand any chance of catching him. But - still reeling from a personal tragedy - is Jonas really up to the task? Because there's at least one person on Exmoor who thinks that, when it comes to being the first line of defence, Jonas Holly may be the last man to trust...
Darkside by Belinda Bauer
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer
Reviews
The Daily Express
David Connett
“There is some overlap between this, Bauer’s third book, and her previous two, the award-winning Blacklands and Darkside. You do not need to read either of them before opening the covers of this latest novel but you are certain to go out and buy them after finishing this, as I did. Her tale mines a coal-black seam of rural dystopia and is all the more remarkable because so much of it is seen through the eyes of the missing children and those friends who were fortunate enough to be left behind. At times, it felt disconcerting to be so entertained by such a disturbing imagination.”
15/01/2012
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The Guardian
John O'Connell
“Dark Side, Bauer's follow-up to her bestselling Blacklands, struck some as disappointing. Any doubters' faith should be restored by Finders Keepers, set once again in the tiny Exmoor village of Shipcott … Bauer's books work because of their deep sense of how rural communities work (and don't work), and of the tensions between locals and incomers. The grimness is offset by humour and, in this case, romance. Excellent.”
20/01/2012
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The Sunday Times
Joan Smith
“Bauer has established a reputation for plunging her characters into unimaginable gore. Her third novel easily matches her previous efforts, exposing village bobby Jonas Holly — still recovering from a narrow escape from death in an earlier outing — to events unprecedented in British crime fiction. The British countryside has never appeared so alien or macabre.”
15/01/2012
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The Literary Review
Jessica Mann
“A benighted village in a beautiful setting, the tensions between rich and poor, locals and settlers, old money and new — all of it is cleverly portrayed. Bauer writes with elegance and humour. ‘It’s all gone Chicago out there’ is the official response to soaring rates of garden-shed theft. But the real crime is utterly disgusting, its solution implausible, and the set-up incomprehensible if you haven’t read the previous two books.”
01/03/2012
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The Observer
Alison Flood
“... it's the book's humour that really shines. Bauer reveals her Gold Dagger-winning writing credentials in her neat skewering of everyday pomposities and her wry asides ... Where the novel stutters is in its pacing: Bauer's prose lacks urgency, moving from the perspective of abductee to abductor, Reynolds to Holly, Steven to Davey, slowing down the action, leaking away energy. If the reader can accept that, yes, yet again Shipcott is at the mercy of a psychopath, and somehow Steven is once more at the heart of the crimes, Finders Keepers is an entertaining enough read.”
15/01/2012
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The Times
Marcel Berlins
“Chilling … What has happened to the missing children — and why — is deeply disturbing; matching the sinister Exmoor setting and its withdrawn inhabitants.”
07/01/2012
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