This is book two in a series. The story is full of twists. The characters are well developed. The ending was a surprise too

The Shadow Lily is the second novel in The Islands Murder series featuring Detective Hanna Duncker. Last year I read and loved the first book in the series, The Night Singer, and as there were elements of the story left unfinished I was thrilled to be back on the Swedish island of Ölund to pick up where the first book left off.

Jenny Ahlström returns home to find that her husband, Thomas, and 14 month old son are missing. Hanna and her partner, Erik Lindgren are immediately sent out to investigate, and it's a race against time to find out if Thomas and Hugo have been the victims of a crime or if they disappeared of their own accord. As they begin to question his friends and colleagues, it becomes clear that Thomas has been keeping secrets from his wife. What and who was he involved with, and does the daughter he never met or had any involvement with have anything to do with his disappearance?

I really enjoyed the dual-timeline aspect of the story. Placing flashbacks from Thomas's POV throughout the investigation really helped to build a picture of the events leading up to his wife discovering they were missing. Gradually piecing together bits of information from these flashbacks with the information Hanna and Erik uncover meant that I had the opportunity to play detective too and try to work out what happened before the detectives.

The reason I was so keen to read The Shadow Lily was to find out more about Hanna's investigation into her father's conviction for murder. Even though the two police investigations have been interesting, it is this storyline which has kept me hooked and wanting to find out more. Annoyingly and excitingly at the same time, this looks like it will continue into a third book. The latest developments are very intriguing and I look forward to reading on!

When Jenny Ahlström returns from a weekend away to find her husband Thomas and their toddler Hugo missing, Detective Hanna Duncker fears the worst.
If the young boy is still alive out there, he may not be for much longer.
Though the small island is teeming with volunteer search parties, not every local has Hugo's safety in mind. And an estranged adult daughter is only one of the troubling secrets Thomas has been hiding from his wife.
In the shadow of Hugo's case, an unsettling truth about the murder committed by Hanna's own father begins to take shape - something not only dark, but potentially dangerous.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Headline for an advance copy of The Shadow Lily, the second novel in The Islands Murder series set in and around the Swedish island of Ölund and featuring Detective Hanna Duncker.

When Jenny Ahlström returns home from a weekend away she discovers the her husband, Thomas, and 14 month old son, Hugo are missing. Hanna and the team are immediately on high alert and start a search. It soon becomes clear that Thomas has been keeping secrets, not least an estranged adult daughter. Meanwhile Hannah’s search to discover if her father really killed the woman he was imprisoned for takes a dangerous turn.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Shadow Lily which is a fast paced procedural with a well concealed perpetrator and several twists. The narrative is told from several points of view, but mainly Hanna’s, in the present and alternates with Thomas’s actions on the last day he was seen.

The search for Thomas and Hugo percolates in the background in the early part of the novel with the detectives concentrating on Thomas’s life and either why he would want to disappear or who would want to harm him and Hugo. Jenny’s panic and their sense of urgency is well done and raises the tension nicely. It also encourages the reader to keep turning the pages. Later in the novel there is more a sense of frustration as it becomes apparent that just about every witness is lying to them, or if not outright lying being economical with the truth. It’s interesting to wade through these weeds with them, although I never got close to guessing the truth.

The subplot of Hanna revisiting her father’s crime takes another step forward and ends in a cliffhanger. This is obviously destined to be an ongoing thread. I’m not a big fan of threads - too much time and too many other books between instalments to really keep up. Fortunately the author recaps the highlights for new and old readers alike. It is interesting in its permutations of what might or might not have happened but even more interesting in why someone is now trying to scare her off.

The Shadow Lily is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.