I've long been a fan of Gytha Lodge's crime series featuring DCI Jonah Sheens so awaited the latest instalment with enthusiasm.

Thanks to Michael Joseph/NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story opens with Jonah having a quiet drink in a pub garden when his peace is interrupted by the arrival of a teenage girl, Keely, covered in blood. She tells a story about her sister, Nina, who is missing. Jonah and his team scramble to find Nina, but Keely isn't in any hurry to give up any clues. Instead, she relates the sisters' story very much in her own time - and it is up to Jonah and the police team to work out whether Keely is a killer or a victim.

This is a well-written and complex story. Lodge is a master of the slow reveal, even though this means that the pacing is a little reserved at times (although picks up towards the end of the novel). The fact that a lot of the story is narrated by Keely - who is deliberately witholding information - means that there is a lot of backstory and not so much actual action until the story strands start to come together.

Keely's is a dark story and one that is hard to read at times - I don't want to give spoilers but it is worth mentioning that it focuses on abuse and the vagaries of the systems supporting looked after children. The girls' experiences (as related by Keely) are sad and their path through life strewn with abusive men - although a big part of the police team's work is to find out how much of it is true given the seeming unreliability of the narrator.

Part of the story is told from DCI Jonah Sheehs' point of view, although I think he remains a bit of a mysterious figure at the centre of the novel. There is a lot about his personal situation and thoughts, but he still doesn't come alive as a character for me as much as his Detective Constable, Juliette Hanson, or other members of the team. In particular, Hanson's rapport with DS Ben Lightman is warmly conveyed and appealing to the reader; I hope there's more to this story in the next book.

Although this is the fourth novel in the series, I think it could be read as a standalone. The only real backstory needed to understand this is that DCI Jonah Sheens has a complex love life - the current situation is explained in the book but doesn't have much impact on the central crime plot at all.

Overall, I'd recommend this as a good instalment in a great series. I don't think it is the strongest of the four novels so far, but I certainly found it compelling and engaging.

This is book 4 in a series but the first one I have read by this author and I will definitely be going back to read the others. I love a book that keeps me guessing and this one did just that. I really wanted to believe Keely from the start I just wasn’t sure if she could be trusted. The twists and turns as she reveals more about her childhood had me equal parts hooked and heartbroken. It’s a tough read in places. Keely is such an interesting character though. I loved Jonah and his team and I really want to get to know them more so I’m looking forward to reading the first 3. I am however slightly baffled by Jonah’s personal life. It seems a tad ridiculous. The only thing I struggled with was the chapters do jump around a bit. Also TW for child abuse, rape, and foster care.

I received a copy of the ebook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This was a very well written book and a particularly harrowing story of what happened to these sisters . Very intriguing at the beginning as to where the story was leading but then followed plenty of twists and turns . I absolutely loved this book , it’s a pity I seemed to have missed a couple in the series . I will have to go back and read them . I highly recommend this book and can’t wait for the next . This lady has become one of my favourite authors at the moment

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. The beginning was good and drew me in quickly. I felt the middle was long so I did skim some of it. It's really sad to hear how some foster kids are treated in the system. There were some good twists and shocks I didn't see coming. The end was not what I expected. I just haven't liked any of Gytha's book as much as the first one. But overall, still pretty good book.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

This is the next instalment where we catch up with Detective Jonah Sheens. He has a newborn and is having a little down time in his local pub when a girl approaches him covered in blood. This begins a whole chain of events and uncoverings of evidence, and a slight game of cat and mouse until the puzzle of why this girl was covered in blood is revealed and the pieces slide together.

I enjoy this series of books, and the writer underpins the whole series with real emotion. All the characters are really well written, and all have some sense of relatability about them. This particular story was about working out the clues, and once I was a certain way through, even I could work the clues out to find the evidence. An excellent book, with twists and turns throughout.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

this one isnt a light read and deals with quite a lot of issues

a young teenage girl appears with blood all over her t-shirt saying that the police should be looking for her sister...

the safety of the sister is the main concern for the police and the round about way that keely talks to the police has the police running round in circles at first...

i have to admit to struggling with this one quite a bit with how manipulative it all felt though the ending was quite eventful.. not one of my favs i have to say

It was great to join DCI Jonah Sheen and his team in their latest investigation. They are all having their own troubles to deal with when a girl comes out of the wood covered in blood. Hers or someone elses?
There were so many twists and turns in this book and it touched on the care system and the horrors that are often associated with it.
I would certainly recommend this book to other readers. Another great book from Gytha Lodge.
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Penguin Michael Jospeh UK for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Thank you for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately I found this to be such a poorly written slog I could not continue. Three sentences in a row starting with "Jonah (verb)"... cmon. This is amateur writing. I also found Keely to be extremely annoying and my lack of sympathy with her (despite the horrors of her childhood) contributed to my inability to enjoy this book.

Gytha Lodge has done it again. What an incredibly gripping thriller. Pulled me in from the start. Full of plenty of twists and turns. I can't wait for the next Detective Sheen's novel.

This is a great series, which I get really excited about, every time a new novel is announced

This book focuses on the care system and may not be an easy read for all

This book is very unnerving in places and sent shivers up my spine at some of the dialogue between the characters and the actions

There is so much happening in this novel, the intense drama makes the novel really hard to put down

This is a great read and one that will stay with me for a while

It's fair to say there have been some major changes in DCI Jonah Sheen's life recently, but none of them were concerning him as he sat in a pleasant pub garden enjoying a quiet drink on a warm Sunday afternoon. Everything changes when a young woman appears in front of him, and other patrons, blood covered and fragile.

With his team called in and the young woman, Keely, offering shattering disclosures, teasing wordplay, and cold disdain, in equal measure, no-one is sure what exactly has happened or why. One thing is certain however, Keely has a sister and is the only one with any idea where she is.

This is the fourth in the DCI Jonah Sheen series and once again doesn't disappoint. The three other team members are still as engagingly different as before and the case, full of twists, turns, and possibilities, covers traumatic and sensitive issues in a kind and thoughtful manner throughout. As is usual with this author most things merge into as satisfying an ending as you would wish to find as well as providing enticing hints at future issues which I can't wait to investigate further in hopefully a not too distant future.

I was able to read an advanced copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publishers but the opinions expressed are my own. This series gets better and better and comes highly recommended.

Though it is apparently the fourth book in a series involving DCI Jonah Sheens and his colleagues this is the first I’ve read. It didn’t seem to matter.

Two flame haired sisters have clearly had a challenging time in care homes and foster placements. But who are the abusers and who are the victims. With brilliant descriptions of manipulative and exploitative behaviour, the police must make sense of it all. When children speak out it is essential they are heard and understood. But what if it all feels scripted and the authorities themselves feel they might be the victims of manipulation?

A compelling story with a team of interesting characters with enough back story to add depth to the context without getting in the way of this particular story. Definitely an author I will read more from.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a free copy in exchange for a fair review.

Keely wanders into a pun garden covered in blood. Detective Jonah Sheens is sitting in the pub garden and soon discovers that Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children's home a week ago.
And Nina is still missing.
Keely now has the attention of the police and wants to tell her story.
They need to decide what is the truth and is she a victim, a liar or telling the truth.
This will have you hooked to the last page!

This is a third in a series. However it is still fantastic to read alone. A brilliant police procedure story with plenty of twists. Also as always beautifully set xx

Although this is the first book I have read in this series it is a great standalone. This is a very clever ,full of twists and turns Police Procedural. Nothing is as it seems and the story weaves and twists until your head is spinning with new revelations .The characterisation is great as well I shall now read more in this series .A very enjoyable read .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

I was lucky enough to receive a prize from Gytha Lodge and now have three of her hardbacks, all individually signed. I haven’t had chance to read them and as I was granted access to this fourth novel in the series on NetGalley I decided to dive in and hope it would work as a standalone novel. I needn’t have worried at all. This was immediately accessible, yes there were aspects of Jonah’s life that I’m looking forward to finding out more about, but on the whole I could enjoy the mystery without feeling like I didn’t know my protagonist.

The opening scene is absolutely brilliant and shocking at the same time. Jonah sits in a warm beer garden with his baby in a pram at his side. His musing on life and his recent choice to return to a relationship with the mother of his child, leaving behind a newly burgeoning relationship with Jojo who he misses enormously. It takes a moment for him to notice the young woman who has come into the garden. She has red hair and her hands and chest are covered in blood. While others simply stare in shock, Jonah rings his partner to pick up the baby, then moves over to the girl and offers to get her a drink. They sit and her story starts to come out, but this is going to be a tricky investigation. Jonah wants to take his time, go gently and not rush her. Then she makes a revelation. Her name is Keeley and her sister is Nina, this is her blood and of course they need to find her, but first Keeley wants to tell them a story.

Nina and Keeley have spent their entire childhood in care. Bouncing from children’s home to foster parent, they seem to have been magnets for predators at an early age. There are two foster homes where the placement failed. One is the Murray-Watts who live in a large house in the country with their son Callum and the right type of Range Rover. However, Keeley remembers a regime of cruelty and starvation, where their foster father was always pitting the children against each other and for punishment locked them in a dark basement for days. From there to the Pinders where the girls made a complaint of sexual assault against their foster father who groomed them with trendy clothes, alcohol and watched Gossip Girl with them. Then he started to want things in return. The problem with these accusations is that nobody believed them, and even though they were removed from the homes in question, no one was prosecuted. Jonah and his excellent team have to tread a very fine line. Keeley comes across as cold and calculating one moment, but then like a broken victims the next. Which is an act? Or are they both the same girl? Either way she won’t compromise, either Jonah listens to her full story or she won’t tell them where Nina is. Time is ticking and if Nina is severely injured will she last to the end of the story.

I thought Keeley was a fascinating character, psychologically flawed and clearly traumatised by their past, however much of it is true. It’s clear that some aspects of the girls accusations are true, so even if someone makes multiple accusations does it mean they’re all false? The book kept me guessing and there were times when I wondered whether I trusted Keeley with her sister. She shows all the traits of a psychopath, but if Nina has been subjected to the same treatment won’t she be afflicted psychologically too? I was also dying to know where these foster parents were and whether the girls had help from them to weave a story for the police. I started to wonder if Keeley had known that Jonah was in the beer garden that day. She seems to be fascinated with his team so could one of them have come across the girls before?

There are some dark stories here and they could be distressing for people who’ve gone through a similar experience, but its that darkness that keeps us hooked. If Keeley has planned how to elicit sympathy from the police, she certainly knows what she’s doing. As readers we are pulled from distress and empathy to disbelief and a sense that something is very, very wrong with Keeley. This is a great mystery, with great twists in store and a police team I enjoyed getting to know. Now Im looking forward to going back to No 1 and filling in the gaps in my knowledge, while enjoying more of this writer’s incredible creative plots and dark atmosphere.

My Review:
I want to start off by saying that I really enjoyed this book a lot. I never read any of this authors books and I’m so happy that I picked this one up. You just never know what you’re going to get when you try a new author. This was book four in the DCI Jonah Sheens Series but I had no problems reading it as a stand alone. Of course it’s always better to read the books that came before it in a series but it doesn’t bother me one bit. I am constantly reading books out of order and I love it. Now on to the book itself. I really loved all the police characters and the way they worked and interacted together to solve the case. Each of them had a specific role in the case and they did it exceptionally well. The story was an interesting one. You had two sisters that went missing and all of a sudden one pops back up but refuses to say where her sister was. In fact, she wants the police to listen to her story from the very beginning and have them figure out what was going on. She was giving out subtle clues throughout her whole story. The only thing that drove me nuts about this book was you had to make sure you read every word. One paragraph would be one story then the next paragraph would jump to another story. For example, you would be in the police station interviewing a suspect with one detective then next paragraph you would be at a crime scene with another detective. You had to really pay attention to what you were reading. Once I realized this and paid more attention to what I was reading I really let myself go get immersed into the story and couldn’t put this one down. I can’t wait to read more books by this author.

In conclusion, the plot, the characters and all the twists in this book made this book an enjoyable read. I would definitely recommend it and happily give it 4 Hearts❤️❤️❤️❤️

Another great read from Gytha Lodge. This is the fourth in the series and the second one I’ve read and loved. One of the things I really like about this series is that there is not just one lead detective to the narrative, there are at least two, and all the others involved also have their own voice and story to tell, which makes it that bit more interesting to read and gives more depth to the story. Both books have also been completely different but just as cleverly told with some great twists and turns along the way. After two great books, I definitely consider myself a fan of this author.

Wow!! Just wow!! Gytha, stand up and take a bow- this book is phenomenal!!! I have no clue how my ramblings will do this gem any justice at all.

Little Sister is a book that had me intrigued from just the cover reveal. I can safely say it hasn’t disappointed, I have been pulled in and held captive from the beginning. This is a book which has made me feel torn between wanting to devour page after page and wanting to savour every last detail.

Jonah is back and this is a rather complex case. I have loved it. There are definitely some dark aspects to this one. We meet the Lennox sisters, who aren’t exactly what you’d expect. This throws us into a plot that unravels and gives us little snippets of information. I definitely couldn’t predict where this was going.

I have read all Gytha’s books and am a huge fan but this one is truly outstanding. This is definitely my favourite yet. This moves at a great pace, it’s definitely kept me hooked and been completely unputdownable.

I have found their have been moments which have made me gasp, moments that have shocked me and characters I’ve been unsure if they are trustworthy.

This is a book I truly wish I could read for the first time all over again. I’m in complete awe and fangirl mode at how utterly fantastic this book is. I have no doubt that this will be a best seller because this truly is an absolutely outstanding read.

I will definitely be recommending this book to fans of the genre. If you haven’t read Gytha’s books, they are a definite MUST READ!!!

This is the latest outstanding and gripping psychological thriller in Gytha Lodge's Southampton based DCI Jonah Sheens series. Sheens and his crack police team of DS Ben Lightman, DS Domnall O'Malley, and DC Juliette Hanson, finds themselves frantically racing against the clock in one of their most harrowing of investigations. Sheens is at the pub appreciating a pint, a moment of calm in a changed life of chaos and mayhem with the arrival of 6 week old daughter, Millie, with his ex-fiance Michelle, with whom he now lives. This moment of bliss is shattered with the appearance on the scene of a red haired and pale 16 year old Keely Lennox, covered in blood. It turns out Keely and her 14 year old sister, Nina, went missing from a care home 5 days ago, and there are strong reasons for concern, Keely does not get on with Nina. Is Keely a killer, a victim or a witness?

Keely is no ordinary teenager, she is cold, hard, manipulative, controlling and utter implacable in carrying out an agenda that she will not be moved from. She is intent on telling her story, taking her time, relating that there are 3 men responsible for destroying her life, a tale with its own clues and leads that police team have to listen to carefully, in an effort to locate Nina as soon as possible and in this they are aided by DI Murray Quick and the police kidnap team. The team wonder how much, if any, of Keely's account of her life can be believed, there is a history of serious allegations made against foster parents, Henry and Sally, Frank Pinder and a care worker, Jared Boula. Sheens's opinion shifts and changes several times during the challenging and traumatic interview, in this twisted, dark and intense narrative of damaging and heartbreaking child abuse, physical, emotional and sexual, within the care system.

Lodge writes an utterly riveting, well plotted psychological thriller that requires the reader to pay close attention to details, big and small, and even then you are unlikely to see some of the big twists coming. The characterisations of the Lennox sisters is done brilliantly, 2 middle class girls who find themselves in the completely unfamiliar world of the flawed care system after the death of their mother. This is a stellar addition to what is a wonderful crime series, the hardworking police team work their socks off as they follow the trail of crumbs laid out for them by Keely in a case that particularly gets to Ben Lightman. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.