Little Girl Gone
An Afton Tangler Thriller
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4.2 • 15 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In the first Afton Tangler thriller, the unforgiving cold of a Minnesota winter hides the truth behind an even more chilling crime...
On a frozen night in an affluent neighborhood of Minneapolis, a baby is abducted from her home after her teenage babysitter is violently assaulted. The parents are frantic, the police are baffled, and, with the perpetrator already in the wind, the trail is getting colder by the second.
As family liaison officer with the Minneapolis P.D., it’s Afton Tangler’s job to deal with the emotional aftermath of terrible crimes—but she’s never faced a case quite as brutal as this. Each development is more heartbreaking than the last and the only lead is a collection of seemingly unrelated clues.
But, most disturbing of all, Afton begins to suspect that this case is not isolated. Whoever did this has taken babies before—and if Afton doesn’t solve this crime soon, more children are sure to go missing . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schmitt, the author of three cozy series under her Laura Childs pseudonym, tries her hand at a thriller with mixed results. Marjorie Sorenson, a human trafficker who kidnaps babies, specializes in creating reborn dolls, constructed to eerily resemble real infants. At a doll show at a Minnesota shopping mall, Marjorie's booth attracts Susan Darden, the affluent mother of a three-month-old girl, Elizabeth Ann. Marjorie and her creepy son, Ronnie, tail Susan home, and the pair abduct Elizabeth Ann after overpowering a babysitter. Plucky family liaison officer Afton Tangler assists the frantic Susan and her husband with their trauma as the search for the child continues. Meanwhile, Afton can't help noticing that the lead FBI agent in the case is "tall and lanky with steel gray hair and warm brown eyes the color of precious amber." The denouement is both predictable and less than plausible in this tale for readers who don't mind cartoonish villains and gratuitous injections of romance into a grim and disturbing plot line.
Customer Reviews
An Afton Tangler Thriller!
Little Girl Gone by Gerry Schmitt is An Afton Tangler Thriller novel (first book in series). Marjorie Sorenson has a table at the doll show at Skylark Shopping Mall. She is showing off her reborn dolls (which look just like real babies). Susan Darden is at the mall and admires Marjorie’s creations. Marjorie admires the pictures of Susan’s little girl, Elizabeth Ann who is three months old. That night Susan and her husband, Richard go out for the evening and leave Elizabeth Ann with a babysitter. Someone breaks in and takes the little girl (after attacking the babysitter). Afton Tangler is a community liaison officer for the Minneapolis Police Department. She is called in to handle the Darden’s. Afton wishes to be a detective, but with her master’s in social work made her perfect for the community liaison officer position (and she keeps hoping to get promoted when a spot opens up and she gets the experience needed for the position). When Afton ends up upsetting the Darden’s, she works with Max on the case. Max Montgomery works with the Mutual Aid and Multi-Jurisdictional Squad (MAMJS). The two work the case to find little Elizabeth Ann and bring her back home. It is going to take a lot of hard work to find the little girl and her kidnappers but Afton and Max are more than capable of handling the task.
Little Girl Gone is a fast-paced suspense novel that is well-written. The reader is drawn into the story (a good thing) from the beginning. I liked the main character, Afton Tangler. She is a smart, hardworking, determined woman. Afton has an ex-husband and two kids (and now a new dog) and all the problems that go along with them. Max is a good counterpart for her in the book (40s, divorced twice, and two teenage boys). I enjoyed following Max and Afton as they worked to solve the case. I give Little Girl Gone 4.25 out of 5 stars. I would have enjoyed the story more if the culprit had not been revealed to us. Knowing the person responsible right from the beginning takes away some of the suspense or intrigue (that is the only thing that I did not like). I look forward to reading the next book in An Afton Tangler Thriller series.
I received a complimentary copy of Little Girl Gone from NetGalley in exchange for an honest evaluation of the novel. The comments and opinions expressed are strictly my own.