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Lost
Michael Robotham
Time Warner
Reviewed by Sheila Forbes (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Michael Robotham wrote several acclaimed biographies before turning to crime novels. His first, The Suspect, was a sizzler, so I had high hopes of Lost. I was disappointed. Not that there is any lack of action or intrigue; if anything there is too much.

The maverick police officer who continues his own line of investigation under threat of suspension or dismissal is becoming a stereotype. Such is DI Vincent Ruiz, fished out of the Thames with a gaping bullet wound in his leg and no recollection of events leading to the shooting. In his pocket is a photograph of seven-year-old Mickey Carlyle, who went missing from the stairwell of her apartment block three years before.
 
Although a suspected paedophile has already been convicted of her murder, no body has ever been found and Ruiz is illogically convinced she is still alive. He is unable to explain the bloodstains of three people, but no bodies, on the boat from which he has apparently fallen. He calls upon clinical psychologist Joe O'Connor, hero of The Suspect, to help.
 
As his memory gradually returns with Joe's prompting, there develops a tale of kidnap, ransom and revenge, with gruesome explorations of the sewers and underground rivers beneath London, and more killings. But there is more at stake than the fortune in diamonds Ruiz finds in his house. His priority is to find Mickey, but the people closest to her have disappeared and he has to track them down first. Meanwhile, he is under pressure to drop the case because the appeal of her convicted murderer is about to be heard and everyone but Ruiz is convinced of his guilt.
 
It is a fast-moving tale with plenty of original twists and turns, but one that will test the credulity of even the most devoted fan of whodunits.