Look For Her was published on 19 October 2017 by Allison and Busby
The memory of Annalise Wood has haunted the town of Lilling near Cambridge for decades. She went missing in 1976 and although her body was later found, the investigation went cold with no one held responsible. The grief and speculation surrounding her disappearance are engrained in the community.
Forty years on, another young woman stokes her obsession with Annalise, believing that sharing a name with the dead girl has forged a bond between them. When DNA evidence linked to the Annalise Wood murder comes to light, detectives Keene and Frohmann re-examine the case, picking apart previous assumptions and finding sinister connections to a recent drowning.
With her trademark skill in weaving together multiple perspectives and voices, Emily Winslow paints a complex and compelling portrait of a cold case that is far from dead and buried.
My thoughts
Look For Her was my introduction to the beautifully complex Keene and Frohmann series by Emily Winslow.
Although I did not know the history of the main characters or much of what has previously happened, I did not feel too much at a disadvantage. Emily Winslow provides enough detail about the back stories. We know that the two police detectives have had a recent falling out, due to differences on a past case. However I really wish I had read the first three books in the series to grasp the nuances in the relationships.
We follow the narrative, from multiple perspectives. A girl vanished in 1976, Annelise Woods and her body was found a few years later. This murder was never solved. In the present day, Anna is having counselling with Dr. Laurie Ambrose and revealing her total obsession and jealousy of this long dead girl. New DNA evidence comes to light on the Annelise Woods case. This leads to Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann re-opening the case. With over forty years passing since the disappearance of Annelise, can they get to the truth?
This is a straight forward case, that escalates over the course of the novel. There are a few gorgeous twists and turns, on the way. Deaths in the present day. Surprise secret off-spring. Dysfunctional families. The haunting of an entire community by a shocking death. You completely get a sense of a community adrift and still feeling the after effects of the death of the infamous Annelise.
Haunting and fabulous, multi-layered and intelligent. We get some great characterisation. I particularly was drawn to Dr Laurie Ambrose and her counselling sessions, together with her complex grief on the death of her husband. A series to discover and fall in love with. Recommended.
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