Oh my goodness! I could not put this book down once I started it. Murders, drugs, links to the past and a tangled web of deceit.. This book has it all. I have read the first book in this series but somehow I have managed to miss book 2.... something I will rectify ASAP! This book can be read without reading the others but I think the others should be read first. A big thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for a copy of this book to read and review

This was such a good book! This is such a tightly woven story. You have to follow along carefully because it seems like a lot of different things are happening in the storyline. Patricia Gibney had me guessing through the whole book what would happen next. I love a good mystery and this is certainly one!
Received an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review by NetGalley.

Woohoo! Could my reading slump be over? I sure hope so! The "Lost Child" is the 3rd installment in the Lottie Parker series. This Irish widow with three teenagers and a baby grandson is a fierce detective with a chaotic home life and another grisly murder on her hands.

As the story opens up, Lottie is struggling with continued battles with the bottle, her conflicted feelings over her partner, DI Boyd and the cold case of her police father's apparent sucide. Lottie and Boyd are called to the scene where a woman has been brutally murdered, another has gone missing, and a teenager may hold the key to it all. But is this a domestic disturbance gone terribly wrong or is something more sinister simmering below the surface?


Unlike the first two books in the series, Patricia Gibney doesn't focus many scenes at Lottie's home. Nor do Lottie 's children have a narrative part- Sean and Chloe are both healing from their traumas with the support of professionals, and eldest daughter Kate has a case of post-partum but Lottie doesn't really tackle that. But that's Lottie's way of dealing with things, I guess! Its(Lottie 's parenting methods) never bothered me as much as I have noticed as other reviewers, but perhaps Patricia Gibney can consider making a case for it in Book 4.

No, the majority of the book surrounds the murder investigation which begins to be eerily linked with Lottie's deceased father, Patrick Fitzpatrick. A garda who worked in a special division of the police forces and was always believed to have committed sucide. But new evidence has Lottie wondering if someone else may have forced her father to do it. Unknown to Lottie she and her family are also being watched and they are beginning to panic at how close she is getting to the truth. I can see a huge arc building for book 4.

Now let's leave Lottie and her family problems for a minute and talk about one of my favorite reasons to follow this series. Boyd Oh yes, I cannot resist a tall dark haired handsome man! Gibney is good to her readers. She knows we have been faithful and true and has teased us many times about good old Boyd and Lottie. But the epilogue-well, it just proves that she knows we 're invested! Also, there is a ripping off the shirt that is a very nice touch.

So why knock off a .5? Well, it is more to do with a cover design choice. Is it absolutely necessary to use the same tagline for every book in this series? Because while it is very true with this specific book that there is a jaw dropping/heart stopping reveal thrown at Lottie, I am just worried it will grow stale and readers will become, like me, and focus on that promise in all of our reviews.

Holy jumpin'catfish, Batman, what an ending! The jaw dropping moments just kept a-comin'. I usually don't start reviews with the ending chapters, but they really made the book. Sometimes it’s the ride, sometimes the destination. Destination wins here, although the ride was thrilling.
Third book in the D.I. Lottie Parker series, the first I have read. I don't feel as if I made a mistake, Lottie, her co-workers and her family were presented in all their glory in this book. But not too much of the previous books were mentioned so I won't have any problems going back to read them.
An old woman, Tessa Bell, is brutally murdered. Her daughter, Marion is kidnapped and tortured before being dumped on hospital steps. Then her granddaughter, Emma disappears. Throw in a few other crimes including another murder and you have the perfect maelstrom. Is it drugs, a domestic, land disputes, revenge or other unknown reasons that are the motivation of the murders? Or a combination?
A haunting narration from the past takes the reader to an insane asylum where a young girl is incarcerated with her mother, because no one else wanted to deal with her. Her narration continues until she is 21 and finally released.
Lottie, a widow of four years, a mother to three, a new grandmother, and detective inspector with the Ragmullin garda is a mess. A reliance on alcohol and a nascent addiction to Xanax add to the messiness of her life.
A drugs D.I. is brought to Ragmullin to investigate the drugs connections and attempts to take over the entire investigation. Her squad and supervisor manage to thwart his attempts.
Loneliness and frustration with an ongoing private investigation into the long-ago suicide of her father also add to her stress as secrets are finally, shockingly revealed.
I’m getting a bit tired of the spate of messed up female detectives I have recently encountered in my reading. But I guess it’s better than the spate of gang-raped detectives I was reading about last year. Still, a half star.
The book is extremely well written, but another half star for being a somewhat confusing story.
I like that loyal D.S. Mark Boyd has her back even when she treats him like crap. Her other squad members actually seem normal, and even her detective supervisor supports her on occasion, while he still adds pressure for an early solve to the many crimes.
As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, its going to be a bumpy ride!”
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Lost Child is a stark thriller that leaves the reader shuddering in a mix of pity and disgust. At once it shows the devastating effects of neglect and abuse and the extent the wealthy are willing to go to hide their secrets and their shames.

Detective Lottie Parker doesn't have an easy life. She is a struggling alcoholic crippled by the death of her husband. She has three children living at home, the oldest with a baby and an overbearing and critical mother. Her father, a policeman committed suicide years ago, and there are whispers that he was corrupt. Her newest case begins with the murder of an elderly woman and the disappearance of her daughter. They are only the first to die in a case linked to the past, one that stretches to the time of Lottie’s father and is possibly linked to his death. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that a determined and conscienceless killer is seeking a harrowing revenge. Each chapter is preceded by the killer’s reminiscences, which give an understanding but do not give away the the killer’s identity. Lottie is not the most likable person or the most professional detective, but her actions are believable. What is less believable are some of her personal links to the case.

I have mixed feelings about The Lost Child. It’s a good novel but far from perfect. Lottie’s behavior makes it difficult to empathize with her. Gibney’s plotting of the murders, on the other hand, is well thought out.

3 / 5

I received a copy of The Lost Child from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom

Another excellent book in this series. This one was a slow burner to begin with but the second half was much better. There's a lot of characters to keep track of but it's worth persevering with.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishers for this review copy. Also thank you to Kim from Bookouture for arranging the Blog Tour and giving me the opportunity to be part of it!

This is the 3rd book in the Lottie Parker series. It can be read as a standalone, but to fully understand the story it would be beneficial to have read the other two books first.

DI Lottie Parker is given the case of an elderly lady who has been found murdered in her daughter’s home. Her granddaughter, Emma, when returning home from an evening at her friend’s house, found the body, but there is no sign of her mother, Marion. Emma stays at her friend’s house, but later disappears. At the same time, Marion is dumped on the doorstep of her local hospital, badly beaten, with her tongue cut out. Two days later, Lottie and her team are given another case of a nearby house being set on fire. Are the two cases related, and if so how?

It’s great to be back in the company of Lottie Parker again. Nothing has really changed with her. She’s still popping the pills and hiding the vodka bottles, but you still get to see her vulnerable side, particularly where her three children and new grandchild are concerned. It’s great that she can show her emotional side to Boyd, but when are they going to admit that they work well together as a couple both in work and out of it! Whilst Lottie is still trying to battle her current demons, she’s also still transfixed with her past ones, namely why her dad killed himself all those years ago. Despite all this, she hasn’t lost her feisty side and I loved how she dodged every blow of the DI from the Drugs Squad to take over her case! I also loved the side story of her GP friend, Alexandra, which was brutal and disturbing but kept me hooked!

OK, no beating around the bush, I’ll get straight to the point! This book was great! It is definitely the best of the series so far. Right from the beginning, the bodies are stacking up faster than Jane Doe can post-mortem them, and this doesn’t let up throughout the whole book. The story twists and turns giving you false leads and red herrings until you get the ultimate twist at the end!

A very good story, great ending, lots of suspense and heart stopping moments! Will there be a 4th book? I hope so!

Five Stars!

I really enjoyed the first 2 Lottie Parker books, and this 3rd one is just as good. An elderly woman is found brutally battered to death in her daughter's home. Then her daughter is dumped outside the local hospital with her tongue cut out. This is a great story of family secrets - Lottie eventually finds out the part her late father played in it. Thanks to NetGalley for a preview copy.

Epic! Absolutely epic! The third in the series and the best so far. Seriously, straight into my top 5 favorite reads this year.

When an elderly woman is found murdered, Detective Lottie Parker and her side kick Detective Boyd are called to the house to investigate. When they find that her daughter is missing too, they fear that the whole family may be in danger.

A couple of days later a cottage is burned to the ground with two bodies found inside, one dead and one barely alive. With the body count rising Lottie and her team start unraveling secrets and lies from her hometown of Ragmullins past. A case her father seemed to have investigated and who someone wants kept secret at any cost. As she delves further she finds more and more secrets from the towns past, secrets that she hopes will help explain to her finally why her father killed himself all those years ago but is she prepared for what she may find and the terrible secrets that Ragmulkins past hold?

Well let’s cut to the chase. This was epic. It’s the only word to describe it. I mean this is now fast becoming my favorite series currently out there. The first in the series The Missing Girls was excellent, a four star review from me. The second The Stolen Girls an easy five star review and this has five star written all over it. Five star +.

Lottie Parker is a brilliantly written character. In a crowded market of troubled female Detective leads, she is now up there for me with Angela Marsons Kim Stone as the most memorable and well written one. She is such an interesting and alluring character to read and spend time with.

The story here is brilliant too. Complicated, multi layered, combining the past and the present, it’s extremely well plotted out. Your head is spinning with what is happening and at times it feels like there are too many characters to keep track of, but the writing is so good that you just happen to remember who everyone is. I seriously haven’t enjoyed a story so much in a very long time. The final few chapters will have your jaw dropping over and over again. I could actually feel my reading pace increasing as the excitement rose towards the finale.

Patricia Gibneys Lottie Parker novels are longer than most coming in close to 500 pages per book as opposed to the seemingly standard 300-400 for the genre but you know what? They don’t feel long at all. They still feel nice and lean and well edited. It’s just the stories are so readable from cover to cover that you don’t notice tha pages fly by.

Seriously, if you haven’t checked out this series already I’d advise you to as soon as you can. They are that good. I’m writing this review straight after finishing The Lost Girl and I’m still buzzing from reading it. An absolute pleasure to read from the first page to the last. You are in for a real treat if you haven’t read the series. I will be waiting with baited breath for book number four.

Of course this is a five star review. The easiest one given this year. Bravo Patricia Gibney. Bravo.

Thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture and Patricia Gibney for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Lost Child is the third book in the Detective Lottie Parker series and Wow what a book it is. Patricia Gibney seems to get better and better with each book she writes.
The story starts with a child being locked up in St Declan’s lunatic asylum and the excepts of her story go throughout the book.
DI Lottie Parker and DS Mark Boyd are set to investigate a dead body at Marian Russell’s home. When they get there, it’s not Marian’s Body they find but, their elderly mother Tessa who has been gruesomely murdered and Marian is missing. The chief suspect is her ex-husband Arthur. Lottie recognises Tessa’s name after going through her old fathers notes from his investigations in the 70’s. Lottie wonders if there is any links to her father’s death as, she doesn’t believe he committed suicide. With all what’s going, on the story also tells of Lottie’s personal life with the drinking and the pill popping.
Like the rest of the series this book does not disappoint. It has lots of twists and turns and gruesome in parts. The author is good at keeping you hooked till the very end. Not giving the story away straight away. I also like the character of Lottie. With all her problems with the drinking and the pill popping and the relationship she has with her kids made the story more believable and I can’t wait for the next book, after the little teaser we had at the end of this story.
Thank you Bookouture and Netgalley and Patricia Gibney for a copy of this book.

I love a book with a tortured heroine and Detective Lottie Parker is all that and a bag of chips. A woman with a fondness for alcohol and downers, Lottie isn’t the best mother and struggles to be a good cop. Still, she’s got her A game on when a series of gruesome crimes target a family, leaving a grandmother dead, a mother kidnapped and tortured and a daughter missing. Somehow these crimes link back to the case Lottie’s father was working on when he killed himself. With the stakes so high and Lottie’s own mental health in jeopardy, will Lottie follow in her father’s footsteps and end her own life? Gibney gets top marks for portraying such realistic, flawed characters

3.5/5Stars. I always have a hard time deciding whether to round up or down!
Thank you to the publisher, net galley and the author for a copy of this book.

Generally speaking, I enjoy this series. This time around I found Lottie to be quite unlikable and quite self centred (was she always like that ?) .... The story is quite interesting and told in a way that keeps you in suspense.
I find where the author has taken Lottie's story to be quite interesting. I wasn't expecting that. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next installment in the series.

This is the first title by Patricia Gibney that I've read and I can see that the earlier books and all future books will be a must read. Is there a name for Irish crime fiction (scandi noir style)? If not someone needs to coin one. If you're a fan of police procedurals with an Irish twist ala Tana French you will enjoy this series

Another excellent installment in this series. Though I am not sure what other skeletons still could fall out of that poor Lottie's closet! She is a great character with a very recognizable family and work situation, but she does have a tendency to attract trouble. This last story has some excellent twists near the end, I almost held my breath all the way through and definitely forgot all about the horrible weather outside. There is simply nothing better than to lose yourself in a well-written crime novel. So happy I got to read this through Netgalley. Great stuff. Hopefully, there is more to come.

This is the third book in the series with DI Parker. Lottie. Lottie has more issues than Vogue. With three kids and one grandson at home and Lottie working crazy cop hours and her husband dead, drinking and popping pills is just one of the many things in her life she is trying to get under control. And she is trying. 

When she and Boyd catch this case nothing about it makes sense. There are so many twists and turns and What?? moments in this one I'm surprised I didn't get whiplash!

Once I started this one I had to finish it. I had to find out if we are finally going to get to see Lottie with her head on straight, the truth about her father's death, maybe a little romance along the way. And I was not disappointed. Shocked? Oh yes!

This one will keep you on the edge and trying to figure out who is a killer and who is just plain crazy.  And as it goes in life, secrets kept always come to light and Lottie may not want to know some of these secrets.

Well Done!

Netgalley/Bookouture  October 27, 2017

..."Human life, just as fragile, is at the mercy of human greed and shame."

Ragmullin in October -- rain and murder. The first to die is Tessa Ball, mother to Marian and grandmother to Emma. When the bodies continue to pile up, Detective inspector Lottie Parker and Detective Sergeant Mark Boyd know that this is a series of killings such as they have never dealt with before. An intense police investigation involves the old psychiatric instutition, St. Declan's Asylum. A history of a mentally disturbed young woman, a fire, some children and an immense cover-up. Is this a drug-related vendetta? Or is it something much more sinister and evil?

This third in the series has all the elements of a great thriller. I love the characters, especially Lottie, as she is trying to do her job and take care of her children and grandson while also delving into her own family history. Pulse-pounding suspense with a complicated and convoluted plot that will keep readers guessing until the very last pages! I could not put this down. I hope the 4th comes out soon.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the e-book ARC to read and review. Highly recommended. You can't go wrong if you love strong female protagonists, action, and suspense with compelling plots.

4.5 stars. Here's the thing...I like the way Ms. Gibney writes. I've read all 3 Lottie books and they are good. Great characterization, good plots, lots of action and so forth. This one has some things that will probably knock you for a loop, more gruesome too. I don't want to give anything away but, Jeesh! I really want to see something different in "victims". It's time to move along now.

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

First off, let me say that I appreciate receiving a copy of this book via Net Galley and Bookouture. This is my honest review.

I was excited to read this story since I’d heard about this new police procedural series from my book-loving friends.

The story is about DI Lottie Parker and her team and how they struggle to solve a series of gruesome and seemingly unrelated mysteries. The story takes place in Ireland, which is important to mention because abortion is illegal (was?) in the story and thus unwanted children form a backbone of the plot.

I liked Lottie’s police partner, Brady, who has a calming influence on her and is often the one to speak reason.

Lottie has addiction problems (drink and prescription drugs) but manages to hold down her job and look after her three teenage children and new grandson.

The story has multiple threads and multiple characters, and, I have to say, I frequently felt rather lost and was unable to follow who was who.
It was around 40% into the story that I began to feel I had a grip. I should also say that, at times, I found it hard to suspend disbelief, probably because I found it difficult to immerse myself in the story. Sorry, I suppose this one just wasn’t for me.

Oh my Lordie!!!! This Detective Lottie Parker series gets better and Better! WoW what a book!

The Lost Child is Patricia Gibney's third book in the Detective Lottie Parker series . All I can say was what a book, with lots of twists and turns throughout! The ending, well what a cracker. This book is very dark thriller ! Sad beginning of this book as it starts with a child locked in an asylum for many years . Her sad story is told throughout the book in small segments.
Detective Lottie Parker and DS Boyd are called to a murder on the outskirts of Ragmullin.
A senior woman is found dead in her daughter's house and the daughter missing. This murder starts to tie in with Lottie's father's suicide, when Lottie was a child. There are more murders but are they all related? What have they all got in common? Who is Detective Lottie Parker related to?
WoW what a book. I just loved this book and loved the shocking ending. One of my Favourite books I have read so far this year.

Well Done Patricia Gibney. I highly recommend this book . Thank you Bookouture and Netgalley for giving me the chance to review this ebook in exchange for my honest opinion.
5 Star review....Can't wait for the next book of this wonderful series.

Review left on Goodreads

Here we are at book 3 in the Detective Lottie Parker series and I started this book with the half hope that Patricia Gibney would give Lottie a break in this book and also half hoping that she wouldn’t…because if she did then would Lottie lose her edge. You see Lottie has more issues than the Readers Digest. She is the alcoholic, pill popping self-destructive mother to three teenagers, grandmother to one. In the past two books she has desperately been trying to find out why her father, who was also a Garda killed himself. With few answers coming from her mother Rose, Lottie was left trying to piece together things by herself.
This book was fast paced and just kept you turning the pages. The body of an older lady is found in her daughters house, her daughter is missing and her granddaughter has clammed up and goes on the run.
Patricia Gibney threw little clues out all over the place in this book. And the whole thing moved so fast that there was not a moment that you were not trying desperately y keep up with Lottie and Boyd. There were a few times I thought I had it all figured out and the Ms. Gibney would slap me round the face with something I completely was not expecting.
The best part of this for me is the way that Patricia Gibney writes. I am Irish and I have read so many books where the author was Irish and hammed it up but I adore the way she writes. The language is so honest and true and the turn of phrase she uses are so familiar and real.
This book (no spoilers I promise) ends wide open for book 4 and all I have to say is…poor Lottie. But I simply cannot wait for the next book in this series. Another hands down fantastic read.