Cold Grave by Jenny O’Brien

Blog tour: 16 to 20 May 2022

Synopsis

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare …

Seventeen-year-old Bryony Lloyd’s father drops her off at a friend’s house to study – but when he returns to pick her up there’s no sign of her, and the woman who lives in the house swears she lives alone. Bryony has vanished into thin air, and her ‘friend’ doesn’t seem to exist.

DI Gaby Darin immediately sees similarities with another missing-persons case: seventeen-year-old Christy Taylor, who vanished without warning several months earlier. There’s nothing in the girls’ personal lives to suggest trouble at home – could someone have taken them both?

After a third case is linked, Gaby knows time is running out if she’s going to find Bryony and Christy alive. After going missing over a year ago, this girl’s just been found dead.

When a tragic accident means Gaby loses a vital member of her team, she distracts herself from her grief by throwing herself into finding the missing girls. Even if it means putting her whole career on the line …

My review

Cold Grave is the sixth book in the Detective Gaby Darin series and after enjoying others in the series (I haven’t got to the third one yet!), I was really keen to read this for the blog tour.

When Dr Lewis Lloyd goes to collect his 17-year-old daughter, Bryony, from her friend’s house in Mold, he’s horrified to discover that she was never there, especially as he’d dropped her off at the house for a study session only a few hours earlier. The homeowner phones the police after Dr Lloyd forces his way in, not believing her protestations that his daughter isn’t in the house and has never been inside.

DI Gaby Darin is put in charge of the case and she immediately sees similarities with another missing persons case; that of A-level student Christy Taylor, who went missing from a café in Llandudno five months before. The girls are studious and come from similar backgrounds and their disappearances are unexplained and totally out of character.

When a third missing woman is linked, Darin has her work cut out as there appear to be no direct similarities between the cases and no clues that could help solve the cases or locate all the teenagers, dead or alive.

Gaby Darin’s senior pathologist boyfriend, Rusty Mulholland, and his 12-year-old son, Conor, have recently moved into her house and things have become rather strained between them as they try to get used to living together. The couple also seem to have different views on a few issues within their relationship and this causes much friction.

Everything seems to be conspiring against Gaby in this book and she lurches from one traumatic event to another as she desperately tries to concentrate on the missing women and focus on her job.

I really enjoy this police procedural series – it’s well-written and cleverly plotted, with a good pace, and I raced through it in a couple of days, desperate to find out what happened next. The book was tense and emotional at times and the scenes involving the missing women were chilling and disturbing.

Cold Grave is a gripping and intriguing read and I was really shocked by some of the plot twists and unexpected events that the author had woven into this compelling novel. I even gasped out loud in disbelief a couple of times at the twists and turns!

The Detective Gaby Darin books can be read as standalones but there are a few passing mentions of previous cases and events so it’s probably best to read the series in order to get the full experience and learn more about Gaby and her life.

This was another entertaining and engaging read from Jenny O’Brien and I’m already looking forward to her next book!

Buy the book

Cold Grave by Jenny O’Brien can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle now (and is released on 21 July 2022 in paperback), and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks. See also Ethical Book Search.

About the author

Born in Dublin, Jenny O’Brien moved to Wales and then Guernsey, where she tries to find time to write in between working as a nurse and ferrying around three teenagers.

She’s an avid reader and book blogger, in addition to being a previous Romantic Novel Awards (RoNA) judge.

In her spare time, she can be found frowning at her wonky cakes and even wonkier breads. You’ll be pleased to note she won’t be entering The Great British Bake Off. She’s also an all-year-round sea swimmer.

Twitter: @ScribblerJB
Facebook: @JennyOBrienWriter
Instagram: @scribblerjb
Website: https://jennyobrienwriter.wordpress.com

Blog tour

Thanks to Alliya Bouyis at HQ Stories for my digital copy of Cold Grave and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.