THE ALTAR GIRLS
DI LOTTIE PARKER #13
BY PATRICIA GIBNEY
Published: 6th November 2023
Bookouture
When Detective Lottie Parker receives news that a child’s body has been found in the frozen grounds of the cathedral, a shiver runs down her spine. She’s terrified it will be eight-year-old Willow Devine, reported missing that morning.
But when she arrives at the cathedral, holding a photo of Willow with her blonde ponytail and gap-toothed smile, she gets a terrible shock. The body is a young girl, wrapped in a white shroud, a rosary clutched in her frozen fingers. But her hair is dark, not fair. This girl isn’t Willow but another eight-year-old, Naomi.
Desperate to find a connection between the two girls and to find Willow before it is too late, Lottie speaks to the girls’ families and discovers that both girls were altar servers at the cathedral. The charismatic priest Father Maguire has a watertight alibi for the time the girls went missing, but Lottie suspects the confused old lady traumatised by the discovery of Naomi’s body is hiding something…
Lottie’s one of a handful of wonderfully written female lead detectives to emerge over the last several years, and if you’re a fellow crime thriller/ police procedural reader, you’ll no doubt already be familiar with her. As ever, her personality and interaction with her team and family resonate strongly, and her tenacity when it comes to solving the case to be applauded.
The Altar Girls kept me guessing and held my interest throughout. I’m already keen to read book 14!
*Thanks to Bookouture for providing an eARC via NetGalley; this is my honest review.
5 / 5
Gripping and wonderfully written