This debut novel in Lisa Regan's Detective Josie Quinn series does not disappoint! Josie had a crappy childhood. Her ex-husband, who had been her rock since childhood, cheated on her with a stripper. And she is currently suspended for assaulting a suspect. Life is not exactly going her way right now, but she is strong and resilient. One shining light is her fiance Luke, who is a Statie. And I love her grandmother, Lisette.

Teenagers have been disappearing and strange happenings are afoot in the small town of Denton. Josie is forbidden from working on the case because of her suspension. But she just can't help herself, especially as she keeps accidentally finding herself in the middle of bizarre occurrences related to all of the disappearances.

In typical Lisa Regan style, the twists and turns and unexpected connections keep you glued to the pages. And you're not going to solve it yourself before the characters do, like in so many other similar books in the genre. Regan again proves herself to be a master within the police procedural genre and I cannot wait to see where this series goes.

4.5 stars from me!

Vanishing Girls starts with a bang as a little girl knows she is being stalked in the woods, the thing though is that no one believes her until one day she is taken. The book then jumps to the present and we meet Detective Josie Quinn who is currently on suspension from the force for using excessive force. While at a gas station, she not only learns that Isabelle Coleman is missing but she witnesses a shooting and a car crash. One of the victims is a teacher that Josie recognizes and as he dies in her arms, he says one word "Ramona". All Josie has ever wanted and knows is being a police officer, for her, it is her whole world and sadly an obsession. Not one to stand back, she finds herself doing her investigations and soon starts to unravel other missing girls and finding herself at other crime scenes. This doesn't look good for Josie especially since she was told to put her head down and so they try and take it one step further suspending her pay. However, the pieces don't add up for Josie and so she continues to investigate but when the ones she loves are getting hurt - is someone trying to silence Josie, and what happens when the supposed "good guys" turn into potential "bad boys"? Is there anyone out there Josie can trust to bring justice or does she have to continue to break the rules to solve what turns out to be a decades / generational crime? Due to the complex case and what seems like a conspiracy, Vanishing Girls does end up becoming quite a busy novel with lots of key players but overall, a good mystery read in my journey to clear my kindle of older reads.

Lisa Regan is a favorite of mine. Vanishing Girls is the first book in the Josie Quinn series. This books is complex and will keep you turning page after page. It took me until almost the en of the book to finally figure out who actually "done it".
Can not wait to start The Girl With No Name.

Favorite Quotes:

Denton was roughly twenty -five square miles, many of those miles spanning the untamed mountains of central Pennsylvania with their one-lane winding roads, dense woods and rural residences spread out like carelessly thrown confetti.

We can keep arguing about this… but you’re never going to be right.

Whatever. Or is it whatevs? I heard Mrs. Sole’s great-granddaughter in here the other day and she said, ‘whatevs’. Is that the new thing? Young people are too lazy to even finish saying words?


My Review:

This was my first experience with the devastatingly talented Lisa Regan and I found her work to be breathtakingly well-crafted and brilliantly executed with crimes and behaviors that were deeply disturbing and found me cringing and flinching in distress. Her characters were complex, driven, and deeply flawed, yet compelling and vastly intriguing. I can’t wait to dive back in, I am greedy that way, I want all her clever arrangements of words.

A complex, suspenseful plot with tension so thick that it felt palpable. Wonderfully-developed characters with depth and substance. I was immediately drawn in and held captive from beginning to end.

This was my first foray with Lisa Regan and the first book in the Josie Quinn series and I have to say I really like it.

Josie isn't for everyone, but she is a kick-ass, take names later kinda girl who gets the job done anyway she can!

There is a lot going on in this edge of your seat, page turning, murder mystery. Its filled with twists/turns, vanishing girls, good and evil characters, great secondary characters, murders, and a lot of guessing.

I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

#VanishingGirls #NetGalley #Josie #Ramona #Woods #LovedIt

This is a tough and engaging thriller.

Detective Josie Quinn is a tough, dedicated officer, committed to solving crime. She tends to act impulsively at times and has recently been suspended for an assault. Josie is frustrated that her husband, her childhood sweetheart, has betrayed her and has been slow to sign the divorce papers she is waiting for. Josie is doubly frustrated as a beautiful teenage girl has gone missing and her chief won’t let her participate in the investigation.

Josie keeps sneaking into the investigation and hunting out clues behind the scenes. When another young woman is discovered alive, Josie is skeptical that the man accused and killed during the arrest, was the true kidnapper. The young girl is basically catatonic and unable to help in the investigation. But Josie discovers the existence of an older case with a similar abduction. She enlists the help of her fiancé and a pesky news journalist to work on the case and gather the older police file only to learn that the file is missing much of the report. Can Josie get enough information to help the case before she gets fired by her boss? The investigation takes a dangerous twist when the information that Josie gathers apparently threatens some people resulting in Josie and those close to her becoming targets to keep quiet.

Sadly, from the beginning, I couldn’t warm to Josie’s rough character. She was on suspension for excessive reaction and still chose not to follow the rules as she continued to push to be on the abduction case. The investigation and the criminal conspiracy are very interesting, suspenseful, and, at times, horrifying. I recommend this to readers who enjoy dark crime and tough detective stories.

Source: NetGalley 2020.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra

Wow…. That is all I have to say!!! Okay – that is not true – let me say, this book caught my attention and I just could not stop reading it. A very auspicious beginning to what I am hoping is enjoyment from a long series ☺ (eight books at the time of this review writing). Right from the beginning, the author, Lisa Regan, reeled me in with her storytelling in this first book, Vanishing Girls, in the Detective Josie Quinn Series.

The story begins with Detective Josie Quinn viewing from the sidelines the investigation of a disappearance by a young woman (Isabelle Coleman) on a TV in the Stop and Go gas station. Josie still wondered why she could not help with the search parties, after all…:

“Surely being on paid leave for an alleged use of excessive force didn’t render her searching skills useless. It didn’t matter that she was showing up as a private citizen; her colleagues, most of whom she outranked, had sent her home. Chief’s orders.”

What ensues is a story about a detective who very much wants to solve this mystery, which seems to be related to other abductions from the past and how she accomplishes this feat all while being on suspension from the job she so loves, while also overcoming her fears and anxieties. She obtains information from her fiancée Luke, state law enforcement as well as other sources. As the story unfolds, Josie finds that no one is to be trusted – not even her soon to be ex-husband, Ray (whom she has known her whole life).

Throughout this story the reader is bombarded by surprise after surprise! First, are these seemingly random disappearances connected? If so, how? And who is going to such great lengths to suppress the truth? The only real tangible clue is Ramona. But who is Ramona? The magnitude of the wrongs that have been committed in this seemingly close knit community defies all logic (and in my opinion – human decency).

Speckled throughout are segments which detail the stories of the abducted girls. While at times a wee bit confusing, in the end it all makes sense.

Simultaneously, Josie is dealing with her aged grandmother, who is in a nursing home. Without giving anything away, I really enjoyed how the mystery came to touch upon various lives in Rockview Ridge, the only nursing home in Denton. And lets not forget, the trials and tribulations of trying to get her soon-to-be ex to sign the divorce papers! Additionally, Luke is shot, which definitely adds undue stress on Josie. Worrying about her fiancée all while trying to unofficially solve an abduction case, get her ex to actually become her ex and NOT being able to trust anyone… what a strong female character Josie turns out to be!

I was impressed at the strength of Josie while also letting her insecurities and flaws come to light. Her grit was one of the elements of the story that made me really come to like her as a character – flaw and all.

Thank you Lisa Regan for penning such an engaging and gripping thriller. Frankly, I had no idea as to who the bad guys were until it just couldn’t be hidden any longer.

I cannot wait to get the next book in the series, The Girl With No Name and learn what is in store for Detective Josie Quinn.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

Detective Josie Quinn is suspended from the force when 17 year old Isabelle goes missing in Denton. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but the police don't seem to be getting anywhere. They can't find her but suddenly a girl they didn't even know was missing shows up along the side of the highway. Aside from the name Ramona, she is mute and won't say where she was or what happened to her. Josie determines that the girl and Isabelle are connected and the race is on to find her before she is harmed like the newly found teen.

This book moves at a fast pace and Det. Quinn's interactions with her co-workers help to drive the story along as they worry about helping her and about her getting into trouble for working while suspended.

Vanishing Girls – Lisa Regan

Josie Quinn is a Detective with the Denton, PA police department, who is presently on leave from the department as she is investigated for an “excessive use of force” complaint. She is frustrated with her suspension, until she watches the news and learns that a Denton teenager has gone missing 5 days ago. Frantic to get into the investigation, she calls her estranged husband Ray, a lieutenant with the force, who promptly shuts her down. At that moment, she hears gunshots, and an SUV comes hurtling into the gas station when she’s parked, striking the gas pump, hurtling Jo across the lot. As she races to assist, a victim of the accident utters one word, “Ramona”.

As Ray refuses to share information, Josie, aided by her boyfriend Luke, does her best to gain insider information as she starts her own investigation. She quickly learns of another young girl, who went missing a year ago, also from Denton. As she digs deeper, she finds more questions than answers, and with that, doubts about the integrity of her entire police department and all that she holds dear…

This is the first of several novels featuring Detective Josie Quinn, and I am now determined to read them all. This is a fast paced, edge of your seat thriller, and will keep you up well into the night, frantically turning pages in an effort to learn the truth! Great read!!

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an objective review.

A fantastic start to a new series. Focusing on Detective Josie Quinn who is conveniently put on leave and must investigate behind the scenes to get to the bottom of the string of missing girls in her small home town.

Detective Josie Quinn starts to wonder if there is a reason that girls have started to disappear and if they could be connected and through some interesting sleuthing she is led down a path that may implicate quite a few people in this small town. As I always do when reviewing mystery/thrillers I tend to be vague about my feelings on the plot because I just don't want to spoil a thing!

I would send out a warning that this one isn't for the faint of heart. There were many reasons which made this book a little hard for me to read - subject matter wise, but I will completely keep reading the series in hopes that the next case to be solved doesn't have all the elements involved with this one.

This was my first Lisa Regan read and I am excited to dive into her backlist as I loved the writing and style of this mystery/thriller.

Anyone searching for an adrenaline-fueled read will surely enjoy “Vanishing Girls“. Tension and suspense mark this fast-paced, serial killer, crime thriller. This novel introduces a new series featuring a strong-willed, principled protagonist who will be admired by many.

The small-town setting in central Pennsylvania was well described and the locale is easily imaginable.

The story opens with a distressing and chilling prologue where a young girl is quickly and silently snatched from her back yard while her sister is hanging out bed sheets.

With themes of abduction, sexual abuse, and police corruption, there are some scenes which were uncomfortable to read. That being said, the pages almost turned themselves.

I did find some aspects of the story a tad ‘over the top’, but thought it no worse that a lot of television police dramas. Speaking of which, this would make a GREAT TV show!

At the end of the day, I would heartily recommend this novel to any reader who enjoys fast-paced suspense, and a strong female lead. Crime fiction to escape into… Highly recommended!

Vanishing Girls is one of those books that I'm really excited to have found! I haven't seen it at all on bookstagram which is just a shame because this book deserves some hype. Also, side note here but where are all of the mystery bookstagrammers (and not the ones that just read thrillers, I follow plenty of those)? I was intrigued by the premise of this book which is why I picked it up. I'm also a sucker for any new mystery series featuring female detectives as lead characters which I've mentioned before. At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about Josie. I don't think that it is a spoiler to say that when the book starts off she has been suspended which we know but not the reason why she was suspended. From there, she makes a series of questionable choices that had me wondering about her character overall. Before long though, I was so hooked by the storyline that I couldn't put the book down. And as the pages went on, I felt like I understood her character more and more. I actually really appreciated the fact that she wasn't perfect and that we as the reader got the chance to see some of her struggles. I think I liked her all the more because of it. The second half of this book was so fast paced that I had a really hard time setting my e-reader down. I just could not and did not want to stop reading! This book was darker than I expected it to be and also way more intense. There are a few trigger warnings in here so this book won't be for all readers but it was really, really good in my opinion. I'm really excited to have found this series and cannot wait to continue on with it! I'm also really intrigued to see how everything that happened in this book will play out in future books (I'll leave it at that in order to not share any spoilers).

Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely and am excited to have found both this author and series! It was both dark and thrilling which is two of my favorite things in a mystery. It was also quite the page turner! I love a good mystery series and books like this are exactly why. I'm going to be impatiently waiting for book two to release - that's for sure! I would recommend this book to fans of both mysteries and suspense easily. I actually really hope that more readers find this series because it deserves the attention. It was a really solid read and I want more! Highly recommended!

Bottom Line: A dark mystery that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could (or swiping since I read this on my e-reader).

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley. Honest thoughts are my own.

Vanishing Girls is the first book in the Detective Josie Quinn Thriller series. Josie is a smart and passionate police officer in a small Pennsylvania town. She is currently on suspension for using excessive force and she is also facing the end of her marriage. Then, a local teenager disappears. Unable to officially help with the search for the missing girl, Josie begins her own investigation and uncovers much more than she bargained for.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s the total package. A police procedural of the first order, a variety of interesting characters, great dialogue, lots of action, and a first-rate mystery. This is a book that is well-written, with twists that make it even more interesting and compelling.

I highly recommend Vanishing Girls. Thank you, Ms Regan, for giving me such reading pleasure.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Another great read by Lisa Regan, her writing is always compelling, fresh, and interesting. This mystery keeps you guessing and has some surprises at the end as she ties it all together. This is a continuing series, and one of the characters I liked was killed off, so sad face on that, but I can see the evolution of it for the next installment. Josie, the lead character is hard to love or even like for that matter, but she is true blue and never gives up. If you like mysteries in small towns with a lot of history and buried secrets, you will enjoy this book.

This book is part of an on going series but can be read alone. It has a good story line and lots of twist.

Fans of Lisa Regan will be delighted to see a new series, featuring Detective Josie Quinn. If you haven't read anything of this author, this would be a good place to start.

Detective Josie Quinn is a strong, independent woman, secure in her own skin and her job. That is, until she screws up and batters a woman in her custody. She's on unpaid leave, waiting for a hearing to see if her career will stand.

Two girls have recently gone missing in recent time. They found one of the girls ... a girl they hadn't even known had been missing. Of the other girl, nothing has been seen since. Josie wants in on the search, but the Chief of Police has denied her request.

She's been bugging Ray, her soon to be ex-husband and also a detective, for information. She also has questioned Luke, a State Police Officer and her brand new fiancee. They are all warning her to stay away, she can only hurt her own career by doing her own investigating. But she's stubborn and one-minded and wants justice ....

"The trail leads Josie to another victim, a girl who escaped but whose case was labelled a hoax by authorities. To catch this monster, Josie must confront her own nightmares and follow her instinct to the darkest of places. But can she make it out alive?"

This is not my first book read by this author. I like her writing style and her story-telling abilities. Her characters are memorable, and more importantly, credible. I so enjoy the way her characters all interact with each other .... with love, anger, remorse, sorrow .... all the emotions are always exposed.

This new series has twists and turns that start to feel like being on a roller coaster. The plot is definitely an attention -keeper. The ending is exciting ,, maybe just a touch overblown, but riveting, nonetheless. I look forward to following more adventures of Josie.

Many thanks to the author / Grand Central Publishing / Netgalley for the digital copy. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

I always enjoy Lisa Regan books. This title was original and suspenseful I found the characters to be well developed and relatable. I will recommend this title and the authors other books in the future.