The lollipop man by Daniel sellers took some getting used to as I'm more used to American and Canadian words/writing.

18 year old Adrian spends his days working at the local newspaper and his evenings in the local pub. Adrian and Nige get a call from Linda to go take pictures of a scene as they are photographers for the local paper. They get to the scene and hear that it's suspected that the lollipop man is back.

The Lollipop man refers to a crossing guard as his sign on a stick resembles a lollipop. Children start to go missing, 8 years ago 11 year old Samantha Joseph, 4 months later 10 year old Jenny Parker , In October 11 year old Paula sykes, in December Matthew Spivey age 10. Matthew was taken for 2h but then let go. Traumatized but alive he changed his name and tried to move on with his life.

But Adrian has a secret, when he was ten he was abducted by the man the media is calling the lollipop man, but he was the only one to escape.

Does he risk exposing himself to help figure out who the lollipop man is? Or is there a way he can keep his anonymity and still get justice.

Thank you to Daniel Sellers for working with NetGalley. I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

This is a crime mystery about a serial abductor of small children. It’s set in 1994 in West Yorkshire, in and around Hebden Bridge, and although it’s just 30 years ago, it has the sense of a historical novel. Mobile phones are only just becoming commonplace, computers are rare and the internet is unheard of.

There are several protagonists. The first is 18-year-old Adrian, gay but not out to his family, and himself a victim of the abductor who had acquired the nickname of ‘The Lollipop Man’. Adrian has a low-level job at the local newspaper, The Calder Valey Advertiser, where he is the butt of homophobic jokes from colleague Kev. From today’s viewpoint, these are quite shocking and again give a sense of history. Adrian and best pal, Gav, set out to follow up clues as to the current whereabouts of the Lollipop Man.

The second protagonist is Sheila Hargreaves, local celebrity and anchor for the regional news programme ‘Yorkshire Tonight’ who also becomes involved in the hunt for the Lollipop Man.
The action is pacey and avoids being dragged down into lengthy descriptions. Instead the author drives the action along through well pitched dialogue. This allows us to get clear insights into the characters of Adrian and Sheila and the multitude of characters they encounter on their search. One of these is the eccentric character of Mrs Wormley who may hold the key to the Lollipop Man. The dramatic action in pursuit of Lollipop Man builds to a truly gruesome climax towards the end and the tone of the novel slips into horror.

I very much enjoyed this novel that is strongly driven through dialogue and characters’ interaction. driven. There’s an interesting dynamic set up by having two protagonists, Adrian and Sheila. But because the antagonist is not present for much of the novel (if indeed s/he is still alive) the story has insufficient jeopardy to really have the pace of a thriller. But if you enjoy regional crime thrillers with well-realised characters, then this may well be for you.

I’m grateful to Allison and Busby for making available a pre-publication copy so that I might make an honest review.

The book has its strengths and weaknesses. While the story had some interesting elements, it was marred by too many characters and repetitive plot points. I found myself getting irritated with the constant introductions of new characters and the repetitive descriptions of the same events. While there were a few minor issues with character development and pacing, the author's talent and potential shine through. I would like to read more from this author in the future!

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Lollipop Man by Daniel Sellers was a slow burner at the beginning, then Bang! the book started to come alive and had great twists and turns to keep you interested and I ended up turning the pages to find out what happens next.

This book is set in West Yorkshire and 18 year-old Adrian now all grown up, and spends his days working at the local newspaper, and his evenings in his local pub. But 8 years ago he was abducted, by a shadowy figure known as "The Lollipop Man," He was 1 of the 3 children that were taken. Adrian was the only one to escape. This has haunted Adrain all his life.

Now, a young girl has been snatched, but there are eerie similarities with a cold case from many years earlier.

Can it be the same killer, from all those years ago?

Journalist Sheila Hargreaves, is troubled with her own memories of her involvement in the reporting of the previous abductions, and she is determined to dig deeper, atone for what she did nearly a decade ago and bring the Lollipop Man to justice.

Will Sheila Hargreaves find him before it is too late?

Is any child safe?

WoW this book was a roller coaster ride and once I got over the slow beginning I loved it, so stick with it.

I highly recommend The Lollypop man,

This was really great! There were twists and I had a hard time putting this down. It's very fast paced and the characters are entertaining and well developed. The ending was unexpected which I liked. This is a well done thriller that I would recommend. Special Thank You to Daniel Sellers, Allison & Busby and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review

It seemed like a trimming down of the number of characters or at least some better development of them in order to help the reader identify quickly who was who. Add to that some reduction in the repetition and I might have enjoyed it more.

Yorkshire is nicknamed “God’s Own Country”, despite the fact that it has been the stamping ground for the “Ripper” and the “Moors Murderers”. It is a county of contrasts, open moorland and high farms on the one hand, and dense, once heavily industrial, urban communities, such as Bradford, Leeds and Halifax. In the latter, Adrian Brown, aged eighteen, is working for the local paper as a driver and general office junior. It is April 1994 and Adrian has two secrets, he is homosexual but not yet ‘out’, and Adrian Brown isn’t his real name. On three occasions in1986 a young girl had vanished from local streets and clues to them being taken by a man, posing in one case as a Lollipop Man. Then an eight year old boy, Matthew Spivey, disappeared in similar circumstances, only to be suddenly returned. To preserve his anonymity, his parents changed his name. Adrian/Matthew has largely got over the trauma, although his parents haven’t. There have been no other incidences since then, but now a young girl has disappeared and evidence suggests that “The Lollipop Man” has returned. Circumstances now contrive to drag Adrian into the investigation and, along with his pal Gav, TV journalist Sheila, and Reporter Jeanette, he finds himself retracing his own story and entering into dangerous territory.
This is an interesting story, with a lot of characters and some very contrived incidents. The characters are well differentiated and mostly fairly believable, although the actions of the police seem a bit erratic (I can’t get a handle on DCI Struthers). It moves quite quickly, perhaps a bit repetitious, and the final scenes are logical in the context. There are references to the “Hardy Boys”, the “Famous Five” and “Scooby-Doo”, which I think are to ‘remind’ us that Adrian and Gav are young, but which kept making me think, unfairly, that this story is unsophisticated. The plot is good, with a couple of twists, but no real surprises. I’m a bit torn but reckon 3.5 is fair, which will round to 4, which is a bit generous.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley (my first one!) and loved it. This book was a bit of a slow burn, but definitely paid off in the end.

The Lollipop Man takes place in West Yorkshire where multiple young girls have been abducted. Only one survivor, the main character, Adrian. Eight years later, it seems these crimes are starting to take place again. This story was gripping and had twist after twist!

1994, Adrian is an intern with a local newspaper where no one knows he was kidnapped as a child by the Lollipop Man, who also took three young girls who were never found. When another girl is kidnapped in the same way as the previous abductions, Adrian and another journalist try to dig deeper and find out what is going on. I enjoyed this. I would read more from this author. It wasn't blatantly obvious what was going to happen, which I always appreciate. 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

This was a really fascinating book with loads of twists and turns and dead ends before we got to the solution of the mystery. So much so that I was almost dizzy by the end and had no idea how it was going to resolve.

I really enjoyed the setting of West Yorkshire in the early 1990s, given I am a Yorkshire girl myself and I think it provides the perfect backdrop for this kind of murder story, given that this area was the haunt of the Yorkshire Ripper. People now also associate the Calder Valley with the TV Show, Happy Valley, and the moors which rise up to the west of the area with the Moors Murders, so the area has a dark cloud cast over it, if only in people’s minds. It’s not really all bleak, I promise, but it helps for the purposes of this book, which needs a dark cast.

The characters of Adrian and Sheila, who are both haunted by their roles in the disappearance of three young girls eight years before, work brilliantly to carry this story of regret, redemption and resolution. It also touches on the subject of family secrets and being true to yourself. Adrian is battling with letting his parents know who he is, but they also haven’t been honest with him. Sheila is also keeping secrets from her friends but she can’t sit on them if she wants to repair the mistakes of the past.

I thoroughly enjoyed this rollercoaster of a thriller. However, I have to say that the motivations of one of the antagonists at the denouement of the novel were disappointingly unresolved and glossed over, which I found disappointing in terms of payoff for the amount of time invested in the book. It made the ending feel a bit rushed and inadequate, as though the author were less invested in the mystery than the arc of the two main protagonists. This may well be the case, but the reader deserves a proper ending to the crime in case they don’t feel the same.

Complex crime story that will keep you up to find out who did it .. Good characterisations with a victim at its center. Alongside all that, it's a coming out story, a (not always convincing) side issue abt journalists getting the story, and perhaps kayboshing police investigating .. and a gay bar where all is not as it seems .. murky back-story that is explained in big rush at end.. but the villains are really bad, and hurdles to investigation of who kidnaps and kills young girls is convincing ... except I'm not sure in the end what motivates the aider and abetter of the crimes .. but THAT'S OK, it still is really well done. Recommended...

It’s April 1994 and a young girl has been reported missing, the MO is strangely similar to what happened in this Leeds town eight years prior when three girls were also kidnapped and their bodies never found. Dubbed ‘The Lollipop Man’ in the 80s as the kidnapped was seen wearing a long white coat and carrying the lollipop. Locals become frightened that he is back and young Adrian, a young man now, finds himself at the heart of the investigation.

This was a solid 3 star mystery, the cover, the title and the blurb pulled me in however for me it fell short as there were far too many characters, many unnecessarily, and I kept getting especially confused between Sheila and Sylvia and which was which. This is just my opinion though and I’m sure others will be fine with it. I enjoyed the writing style, and as a first for me by Daniel Sellers I will be looking at his other work.

Many thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for my eARC in exchange for my honest review

The Lollipop Man by Daniel Sellers is such a gripping thriller with many twists and turns.
I was completely engrossed all the way through and in awe of the twists and turns which made it a very hard book to put down! Cleverly plotted and wonderfully written, this is a novel I thoroughly enjoyed.

It is 1994, and we are in West Yorkshire, in the district known as the Calder Valley. An old friend of mine called it Cleckhudderfax, a neat blend of three of its major towns. The main character is a young man known as Adrian Brown. I say 'known as' because he was christened Matthew Spivey. When he was 10, he was abducted by a serial killer later dubbed The Lollipop Man, who had already claimed three victims - little girls. Nothing was ever found of them except bloodstained clothes. But here's the strange thing. Adrian/Matthew was found and returned, unharmed, to his parents. It was then decided that he should change his name to allow him to grow up without constant attention from the media.

Now, Adrian is employed as a  trainee reporter-cum gofer with the local newspaper. An unusual lad, is Adrian. He is intelligent, but socially insecure. He is also gay, which was is not an easy road to travel in the landscape of the sometimes toxic masculinity of West Yorkshire in the 1990s. When, after a gap of ten years, another little girl disappears, Adrian is drawn into the messy periphery of the police investigation, along with Sheila Hargreaves, a TV journalist and presenter.

There are several characters on the periphery of this drama but their significance is not immediately obvious to the reader. We have Edna Worley, a middle aged busybody who is obsessed with appearing on local news or getting her name in the papers. When she is found dead on a canal towpath it seems clear that she has been murdered for something she knew. We also have the habitues of the district’s only gay pub, a collection of losers including a barman who doubles as a drag Queen. When one of the regulars, a petty crime sponger known as ‘Little Phil’ also turns up as a corpse in the canal, Adrian is forced to examine the integrity of the people he views as his friends.

It’s fair to say that Adrian isn’t the most inspiring of central characters. Midway through the novel, he is forced to examine how he has screwed up:

"He did a gloomy stock take. He lied to his parents about his sexuality and about his social life. He'd found a dead body and lied about that, this time to the authorities.He'd tampered with evidence. He'd drawn his best friend into a conspiracy to conceal his earlier misdemeanor. Then, with that same friend, he'd broken into a pensioner's house and stolen his murdered sister's private papers. Since then, he'd also managed to fall out with his friend and with his parents and had shouted at and run away from a well-loved television presenter."

There is a tragi-comic episode where Adrian is discovered ‘making hay’ with his boyfriend. Bursting unannounced into the bedroom is a relation who promptly tells her husband, who storms round to Adrian’s parents house. His timing couldn’t be worse, as Adrian’s mum had been childminding a neighbours’ little girl, who appears to have snatched by The Lollipop Man while she was playing in the back garden. Therefore, the crowded front room of the terraced house is full of coppers and social workers. Not exactly the ideal place, one might think, for Adrian’s sexual preferences to be made public. Adrian survives relatively unscathed, and goes on, with the help of a mate, to put two and two together and find the correct answer, lurking in a rather gothick and isolated former tannery on the edge of the moors.

This is certainly not a police procedural, as the coppers seem to make one blunder after another, but it is an entertaining thriller taking us back to the days of mobile phones the size of bricks, and a northern England still under the shadow of the misdeeds of Myra Hindley and Peter Sutcliffe. The book’s title refers to the vague recognition of several witnesses that the abductor was dressed in a white coat and a military style peaked cap, similar to the garb worn by people escorting children across busy roads at going home time. The Lollipop Man will be published by Allison and Busby on 20th Februar

1⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and Allison & Busby for an advanced copy of The Lollipop Man.

In the 1980s a man was abducting children and they named him the lollipop man. He abducted four children but one was able to escape. Flash forward to 1994 and another young child is abducted with a lot of the same similarities to the lollipop man abductions. Has he really resurfaced after all this time?

This book had so much potential but was way too confusing. Too many characters were introduced and it was hard to keep their storylines straight. There was also a lot of repetition throughout the story. There was a lot of build up to a pretty lackluster reveal. I was not a fan at all.

Firstly I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book, it was brilliant. It drew me in from the first page and there were so many twists and turns it kept me guessing until the end. I look forward to reading more from this author.

This is the first book I have read by this author and, on the back of it, it won't be the last! Set back in the mid 90s - how refreshing - we follow 18 year old Adrian who is an intern at a local newspaper. His main job is to ferry the reporter around, driving him as he lost his license. One day, they are called to the scene of a kidnap. A young girl has been snatched. They soon learn that this abduction matches that of an old cold case. One that Adrian is personally connected to. The Lollipop man abducted several children, including 10 year old Adrian, who managed to escape. Adrian has mixed memories of that day but has tried hard to put to in the past. Changing his name helped. But his past is about to become his present...
As well as Adrian we also follow media darling Sheila Hargreaves who has her own demons surrounding the Lollipop man case. She needs him brought to justice for her own atonement.
I said how refreshing to have a book set in the 90s. Before all the technology we have got used to. Phone boxes play their parts herein for example, early mobiles being huge. We also have ceefax (loved that). But along with that, we also have the prejudices that go along with that time, attitudes towards women, homophobia, and the AIDS crisis, all of which are handled very well indeed, and kept within context.
In Adrian and Sheila, the author has created two very rich characters. I took to the both of them right from the off. Other characters were just as well drawn and all played their parts very well. There were rather a lot of them and I can't help feeling that maybe whittling them down, combining roles might have helped the book to flow better.
The story was great, with all the necessary twists and turns, secrets and lies, dysfunctional behaviour, obfuscation, etc that you would expect from a book of this genre. I especially loved Adrian's interactions with his family and best friend. I also took to DCI Struthers, eventually, as he took a bit of getting used to!
And the ending, when it came, was perfect... Apart from me having to say goodbye to a few of the characters that I had bonded with. Maybe, hopefully, we will see them again in the future... In the meantime, I'm off to stuff my tbr with his back catalogue. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

First in a new series from this author takes the reader down to Yorkshire this time and focuses on the disappearance of young girls from 1994 which is occurring again 8 years later. I liked how one of the children who had escaped back then, is now trying to find out who the abductor was/is as they were never caught. Lots of twists and turns until we find out what has been going on and with a great ending too. Look forward to reading more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

A story by a Yorkshire writer about murders in West Yorkshire. How could I not read it!

Daniel Sellers is a new author for me. I'll definitely read more of his fiction.

The Lollipop Man is back. A series of disappearances 8 years before was never solved and the girls who were snatched were never found. 10 year old Matthew Spivey was snatched but returned. Then the trail went cold and the town breathed a sigh of relief.

But in 1994 the disappearances begin again and they are frighteningly similar to the previous ones. Matthew (now Adrian Brown) is working at a local paper. He remembers little of his terrifying ordeal but he's determined to stop The Lollipop Man this time.

Along with a beloved tv presenter and his friends Adrian will stop at nothing including Police warnings to stop the monster before he takes more little girls.

Daniel Sellers has produced a fast paced, thrilling story that kept me hooked to the end. Some parts of the finale did stretch the imagination a touch but the twists are all surprising and will keep you guessing. The characters are all interesting and Adrian was very likeable.

I may not have read Mr Sellers work before but he's on the radar now.

Highly recommended.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Allison & Busby for the advance review copy.

Thank you Netgalley & Alloson & Busby for an eARC ♥️

The story is about Adrian, a young journalist who was kidnapped as a child by a serial predator known as the Lollipop Man. The fact that Adrian escaped is a miracle, but the trauma of that experience has stayed with him.
When another child goes missing in the same town, Adrian is forced to confront his past all over again. I can only imagine how hard it must be for him to relive those memories. The police are stumped, and the media is having a field day, which only adds to Adrian's anxiety.
As Adrian delves deeper into the investigation, he's joined by Sheila, a journalist who covered the original case. Together, they start to unravel some disturbing secrets. I won't lie, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, wondering what would happen next.
What really got to me was the way the author explored the aftermath of trauma. Adrian's story is heartbreaking, and his struggles to come to terms with his past are so relatable.
This book is a gripping thriller, but it's also a thoughtful exploration of trauma and recovery.
I'm so impressed with Daniel Sellers’ writing that I'll definitely be reading more of his books. His ability to craft a compelling story that's both thrilling and thought-provoking has won me over.