I would like to thank Netgalley and Bookouture for an advance copy of Now She's Gone, the second novel to feature DI Rachel Prince of the NCA.

Rachel is asked, as a favour to the Dutch Embassy, to re-look at the death of teenager Emily van Meijer. Police Scotland has declared it an accident but her rich and powerful father believes it was murder. Arriving in Edinburgh on what they think will be a box ticking exercise it doesn't take long for her and her sergeant, DS Mark Brickall to realise there is more to the case than a drunken accident.

I thoroughly enjoyed Now She's Gone and Ms James and her protagonists are fast becoming must reads for me. I like the mixture of strong investigation and Rachel's car crash private life and the straightforward third person narrative which allows the reader to live the former with her and make the same guesses and assumptions. It also makes the many twists and turns more surprising and gives them more impact as the reader has no extra information.

The plotting and pacing are excellent with a relatively simple diplomatic errand widening into, well, something completely different and far more complex. There are reveals in almost every chapter so it gets very compulsive as you just have to keep turning the pages to see where it's going next. I half guessed the perpetrator and motive early on but with so many other things going on to grab my attention it wasn't the disaster this kind of guess can be in other books. In fact it kept me reading even more avidly to see if Rachel would reach the same conclusion. I love the slow build up of a procedural where everyone is a suspect until hard work starts to narrow the field. Ms James does it beautifully.

Rachel Prince is a great protagonist. Smart, savvy and good at her job she can't carry it over to her personal life, which seems to be a never ending cycle of poor decisions. It's what makes her such a human character and so likeable. I also love her banter with her partner DS Mark Brickall which has a real ring of authenticity. I'm not so sure about the portrayal of DI Morag Sillars as it's a bit too close to authentic for any Glaswegian to be happy about!

Now She's Gone is a great read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I'm not sure who was responsible for the sub-heading: "Emily is dead. Who will be next?", but it's not an accurate summary of the plot. A Dutch teenager (Emily) on a cultural trip to Edinburgh falls to her death while a little drunk and Police Scotland has closed the case. The Dutch ambassador, under pressure from Emily's powerful father, asks the National Crime Agency to take a second look and find out more of the facts. Rachel and Mark are therefore dispatched to Edinburgh, where they quickly discover that two years ago a boy on the same cultural trip also died apparently by accident. There is also a significant sub-plot dealing with Rachel's personal life.

I enjoyed this very much. I like the working relationship between Mark and Rachel and thought the initially frosty reception from Police Scotland and the subsequent co-operation was realistically portrayed. The Rachel/Stuart/Joe story was interesting and didn't detract from the momentum of the main investigation. I'm deducting a star for Rachel and Mark going in at the end without back-up, which struck me as unlikely and unnecessary.