Victims

Point Crime: The Beat #9

by david-belbin

Alan Wallace has just got off scot-free. The locals are outraged. But the police are duty bound to protect everyone. Even perverts. Then a two-year-old boy goes missing and the community blames Alan, even though the police say he's innocent.

Genres: Crime

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 1998

Reviews

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
* A 2-year-old boy (Tom) goes missing, and the police spend days searching for him with no luck. They ask plenty of people about Tom, but by day 5 they have to focus on other things.
* Ben's boss tells him to break up with Julie or he'll have to change which area he works in which he doesn't want to do.
* A man Alan Wallace is released from jail without being charged, even though everyone knows he's a paedophile. They just don't have witnesses who will testify. He's placed at a block of flats opposite a nursery school. When Tom goes missing everyone assumes it's his doing, and he is beaten up and pushed in the river. Then later, he's attacked at home and castrated. Neil thinks he knows who did it, but he's not going to arrest anyone, because really he got what he deserved.
* Curt remains on the run from social services, staying with Natalie or in empty houses.
* Ruth sleeps with her boss Dylon, but then tells him it was a one time thing. She also gets a call saying that her father has had a heart attack. By the end of the book he's dead.
* Claire goes to stay with her mother because of her ankle and her grief over Paul.
* Ben tells social services that he is living with Julie so that Curt can come back home. He's going to have to confess to his boss that he's still seeing her though.
* Curt breaks into a house intending to stay there, but the house has poo everywhere. He sees an empty cat bowl and has a horrible suspicion that Tom might have followed the cat into the house and gotten trapped. He finds Tom looking poorly in the en suite, calls 999, and then takes him down the road to his mother's house. She's more than happy to see him.

[Rebecca Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great