Look For Her

Keene and Frohmann #4

by Emily Winslow

Look For Her (Keene and Frohmann) [Paperback] Emily Winslow

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, British Literature

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 2017

About the author

Emily Winslow is the author of a series of crime novels and a memoir. Her books have been published by Random House, HarperCollins, Allison & Busby, and Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

Her novels (The Whole World, The Start of Everything, The Red House, and Look For Her) have been called “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “vivid” (Parade magazine) and “dazzling” (Shelf Awareness). Her memoir, Jane Doe January, is “meticulously constructed and ultimately terrifying” (The New York Times), “potent” (Kirkus), and “compelling” (Bustle).

She grew up in the U.S. and now lives in Cambridge, England teaching for the University of Cambridge and for Cambridge Creative Writing Company.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for me

dan is correct - this is in no way a horror novel.

but it’s a good suspense/procedural, and if you figured out all the twists, you’re much smarter than me. (even if you didn’t, the odds are good). it’s book 4 of the keene and frohmann series, but it’s not necessary to have read any of the others before you read this one. by which i mean it works fine as a standalone and you won’t be confused if you haven’t read the previous three books, but if you are one of those people who have serious spoiler-allergies, you should know better than to start with book four of a series. pack your epipen.

i’d actually read the first book in this series, The Whole World, about six years ago, without realizing it was going to be kicking off a series. i read it because it had a The Secret History-type plot, and in my memory of it, i liked it more than my review tells me i did. some of my complaints in that review apply to this book, too, but either i’m getting softer in my old ago, or i’m just annoyed by different things these days. like The Whole World, this book is told through a variety of POVs - both keene and frohmann of the series’ name, a therapist, and two of her clients - who appear either through transcripts or are given their own unreliable narrator status. and again, the voices are not always wildly different, but it’s not as though you can’t tell the characters apart. character may take a backseat to story, but winslow does a good job establishing relationships, inner monologues, interests outside of the case at hand, and catching a new reader up on conflicts and cases occurring in previous books.

i thought it was adorable that as part of the author-annotations provided in this pagehabit box, winslow doodled a handy little map of cambridge:



but at one point i found myself wishing for a map of the characters, because i started getting very confused and forgetting the specifics of relationships and connections and who was keeping which secret(s) from whom and who had done what to whom in the past and which character had information some other character really could have used and where all the pieces of the puzzle were headed. part of my confusion is probably down to the fact that my morning commute reading time now occurs at 4 am, which can get a bit bleary, but it actually didn’t mar my enjoyment of the book as much as you would think. by the end, everything made sense, and since disorientation is one of the characteristics of mystery and psych suspense novels, my confusion was 100% in the right spirit.

there are actually a couple of mystery plots here, all resolved, and i enjoyed myself enough to want to go back and read the second and third books in the series, if not enough to run through traffic to get at them.

******************************************



i got another pagehabit horror box!!

i have read the first book in this series/not series, so this should be fun. the box sure is. my addiction to post-it-notes has been tickled, there's a little rip van winkle to keep my new england upbringing close at hand, plus - cool new bookmarks!



and a hat that announces my predilections to the world



and also makes me look adorable



thank you, box! you are not horrible at all!

come to my blog!

[Chelsea Humphrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 STARS

I’m really torn on my feelings here; this was definitely a fast paced, exciting read, but I had some issues with how implausible most of the plot turned out to be. I can’t really go into it in detail (because spoilers) but a lot of the narrative surrounding Anna made me uncomfortable in the sense that it felt off. Definitely recommended to the right reader and I had no trouble reading this as a standalone. Nice twist at the end for sure!

I received a copy of this book via Goodreads Giveaways.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When DNA evidence re-opens a case forty-years cold, Morris Keene and his former partner, new mother Chloe Frohmann go looking to solve the disappearance and murder of Annalise Wood. Only, things get very complicated very quickly...

I got this in my first PageHabit horror box. It is in no way a horror novel but was pretty great none the less.


Annalise Wood disappeared on her way from school one day in 1976 and was never seen again. Her body was eventually found in a shallow grave and, years later, DNA evidence on the skirt leads to a suspect. However, that wouldn't be much of a story.

This is the fourth book in the Keene and Frohmann series but I didn't feel lost. The relationship between Keene and Frohmann threw enough clues about what happened in the previous books to keep me in the loop AND make me want to read the previous three, which brings me to my next point: This book was great.

The writing style reminded me of Tana French a bit and Keene and Frohmann behaved more like the Dublin Murder Squad than typical fictitious cops. There was lots of driving around and talking to people. The added wrinkles were Dr. Laurie Ambrose, a therapist with connections to the case, and Annalise Williams, one of her patients that was a little too obsessed with the disappearance of Annalise in the 70s.

What looked to be a straightforward case wound back in on itself numerous times. I kept setting the book down to bring my wife up to speed and she was kind enough to pretend to be interested. Once I dug in, stopping for any length of time was maddening.

The ending was great and the epilogue pretty much wrapped everything up. Apart from it being in the PageHabit horror box instead of an actual horror novel, I have no complaints. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

[Magdalena aka A Bookaholic Swede · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know that this book was the latest book in a series when I got a copy of it. All I saw was an interesting book and I just knew that I wanted to read it. I'm actually thrilled that there are several more books with Morris Keene and Chloe Frohman to read since I found this book to be awesome.

I'm a big fan of cold casebooks and the finding of a body presumed to be Annalise who disappeared decades ago intrigued me. What happened to her, and has the finding of the body something to do with a recent drowning? I was hooked and I loved that the book seemed to have a straightforward kind of story, but as the story progressed did the author twist and turn everything around so you realize that what you expected was just something that you had imagined thanks to a red herring. I especially enjoyed the ending! It felt just perfect! I really liked that the story turned out to be pretty different from what I expected and I enjoyed following the investigation into the missing girl especially when a death in present time seemed to have a connection to the finding of the body. Is there truly a link or is the drowning case just a coincidence? I will not go into details since I don't want to spoil the story.

As for the Morris Keene and Chloe Frohman. I understand there is a lot of history between them and that Morris daughter's arrest in the previous book has had an effect on their relationship. I'm curious to learn more and getting the chance will I definitely read the previous books to find out more. I'm really happy that I decided to read this book since I have now found a new series to read.

Look For Her is a great book that I recommend warmly!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite types of premise in a mystery is a cold case, I love the idea that a criminal thinks they’ve managed to stay off the polices radar only for new evidence to be uncovered years later and put their freedom in jeopardy. The case of Annalise is the type that had instant fame that lasted years, even after her body was found AND especially since her killer was never caught. A pretty young teenager that vanished only to be found years later is legendary in Lilling and the links between past and present turned out to be chilling and intriguing.

Apparently this is the fourth book in a series but since I didn’t even realize until after I had finished this, it clearly wasn’t an issue for me. There is definitely a tricky history between Chloe and Morris but there was enough information provided that I felt caught up. You hear from Chloe and Morris but also from Annalise Williams, a young woman with an odd fascination with Annalise Wood and Laurie a therapist who treats Annalise. Most of the story is told in a straightforward, linear timeline but there were a few chapters with transcripts from Annalise’s therapy sessions that I really enjoyed.

This was fast paced, it’s under 300 pages and I flew through it at a rapid pace. There’s a heavy emphasis on the psychology of the characters and I’m not sure if that’s just because there’s a therapist as one of the characters or if it’s the norm for Winslow, but either way I liked the depth that it added. Recommended for those who enjoy character driven mysteries with smart twists and strong writing.

Look For Her in three words: Intelligent, Insightful and Puzzling.

[DJ Sakata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite Quotes:

I divorced Charlie seventeen years ago. No, wait, eighteen years now. Eighteen years! Our divorce is now old enough to vote, or buy a drink at the pub.

How is it that some crimes capture so much public imagination that people – strangers, even – still grieve them decades later? It’s like historic ghost stories. Most deaths, even terrible ones, get let go of, but occasional ones, for being particularly surprising, ironic, iconic, or grisly, get remembered as spooky tales.

My Review:

The book started with a decades-old cold case murder mystery, which was being pursued again. The case had gripped the area and nation for a brief time in the 70’s after the event and again sixteen years later when a badly decomposed body was found and assumed to be the same missing teenager, although efforts from both previous investigations had been fruitless. There were several overlapping threads in addition to the police case that added to the mystery with intrigue, dead ends, misdirection, secrets, lies; flawed, broken, and vile yet compelling characters; and the ongoing family dramas of the various households of the characters contacted and involved in the case.

This was a slowly developing story and I enjoyed Ms. Winslow’s unpredictable and densely packed storylines as much as I did the compellingly crafted and flawed characters. The premise was clever, relevant, and believable while the storylines were complex and multi-leveled, yet well-paced, engaging, and unpredictable. I had devised and cast aside several theories as I read, all incorrect, every single one of them. The multifaceted tale was written from multiple POVs, yet I didn’t have a problem keeping track as each of the multitudes of characters were distinctly drawn and plucked at my curiosity with a desire to know more. I would enjoy going backward and reading the previous books in the series although that wasn’t necessary to follow this story.

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an extremely satisfying police procedural.
I enjoyed the coppers, the criminals and the bystanders.
This is book#4 in a series, but can totally be read as a stand alone.

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find more in Chill and read
Lilling is a small town just outside Cambridge. In 1976, the town became the center of attention due to a teenage girl that went missing. Some years later they found her body in a shallow grave. But they never found who did it. The poor girl, Annalise, has become a kind of a legend in that small town and those around. Books have been written with her story and people still remember her after decades. Some even think to have a close connection to her.

When a DNA match to Annalise murder suddenly surfaces, then Cold Case investigator Morris Keene takes the lead to a famous case that justifies him to be part of the action. His investigation will be intertwined with a that of a new case, as their paths cross at many levels.

The story is narrated by multiple perspectives and this only gives many angles to the reader to view and understand the story. There are even transcriptions from therapy two of the characters had with a third character, which is a psychologist. We come to see also the narratives of the two main characters, Morris and Chloe, who apparently had some issue to solve from a previous book. I didn’t read any of the previous in the series, however, I didn’t really need that in order to understand the relationship between the two investigators, how much they respect each other and how good they are on what they do.

This one was a fast pace story, with a number of twists and turns to spice it up. The author uses lies and secrets in order to create a very good mystery that will keep the reader going until it’s finished!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story had so many twists, turns and relationships that I drew myself a diagram to keep it all straight - and I say that as a huge compliment to the author! I began reading this as I do most books, in small bits, but quickly realized I wanted to sit down and give this one my undivided attention. In my opinion this is how mysteries should be written - as a big huge puzzle, with each piece slowly providing another glimpse into the scene but not fully coming together until you have all the pieces and begin to twist them and turn them. This author is a master at it. The mystery itself was front and center with the main characters personal stories providing just the slimmest backdrop to make them interesting and human without in anyway drawing your attention away from the clues. I haven't read a really good mystery like this in a long time and was happy to learn there are more in this series. Thank you to the publisher and Goodreads for sending me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[exorcismemily · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐

This is an honest review in exchange for a review copy of this book. I hoped I would love Look for Her. It sounded like an interesting procedural about a cold case, but this was more like a daytime soap that had police characters involved.

It starts off in an interesting way, and I enjoyed reading the therapy transcripts in this book. After that, everything kind of goes off the rails. This novel has less than 300 pages, and there are a massive amount of attempted plot twists within those pages. So many that I got confused, and kept having to go back. Everything got very convoluted.

I appreciate that I was able to read this as a standalone since it's the 4th book in the series. This is a fine place to start if you haven't read the others.

I think it was a promising concept, but too much happened. It made the different plot twists unimportant because everything in the book wanted to be important. I just wish it would have been simpler. Thank you to William Morrow for sending me the copy of this book. Look for Her will be out on 2/13.

[Christie (The Ludic Reader) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a feeling that I am going to be in the minority here, but I didn’t really groove to Emily Winslow’s Look For Her. This is the fourth book in a series featuring British detectives Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann, but I didn’t know that going in and I don’t think it really matters in terms of your enjoyment (or in my case lack of) when reading the novel.

Back in 1976, Annalise Wood disappeared. Years later, another Annalise brings her up in a therapy session with Dr. Laurie Ambrose.

…she went missing when she was sixteen. My mother was the same age when it happened. Annalise was lovely, much prettier than my sister and I ever became. She was the kind of girl you look at and think, Of course someone would want to take her.

The body wasn’t found until 1992 and DNA didn’t yield any results at the time, but now there’s been a break in the case. Keene (who is no longer an active detective) and Frohmann (who has recently had a baby) reunite to follow the trail of new evidence. The pair are prickly with one another; they have clearly had a falling out in a previous installment of the series.

You’d think that all the elements for a compelling mystery would be there, right? Decades old mystery. New evidence. Unreliable narration. So what didn’t work?

Look For Me lacked momentum. Told through transcribed therapy sessions and multiple points of view (the detectives, the therapist, e-mails), I just couldn’t settle into the narrative. (Trust me, multiple narratives aren’t usually a problem for me.) There are a lot of characters to keep track of (also generally not a problem), and complicated family relationships. Perhaps I would have been more inclined to try to untangle the threads if I had cared one iota for any of the characters, but I didn’t.

So it’s weird that I didn’t like this book because it had all the right ingredients and it should have added up to a big win for me. To be fair, because I didn’t read it in one breathless gulp (as is often the case with books like this) I found the story way too convoluted. Part of what was unsatisfying to me was how neatly all these disparate threads were woven together at the end: perhaps just a little too neatly.

My dissatisfaction aside, Winslow can certainly write and I suspect that fans of the series and the majority of the readers who enjoy twisty mysteries will like this book.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and Harper Collins for the opportunity to review this book.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reason I wanted to read this book is because it is in my reading wheelhouse. Yet, I came away disappointed. However, it did not start out that way. In the beginning, I actually was slowly getting into the story. The key word is "slowly". It was long and drawn out. It didn't seem like the story truly started to pick up until about a third of the way in. Then, it was a slow, dull movement the rest of the way through. The voices of the characters melded together as if they were all the same voice. There was no difference for me. After a while, I found myself more skimming this book then actually reading it. Sadly, this book was unmemorable for me.

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thrilling

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting case that spans decades to find the person who killed Annalise. It shows that DNA can’t always be the only thing that seals guilt.

This is the 4th in a series and while the case is a standalone, the relationship history between Forhman and Keene is not.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to William Morrow and TLC Book Tours for the copy in exchange for my honest review. To see more about the author, you can check out my blog!

When picking up Emily Winslow's LOOK FOR HER, I had no idea that it was book four in the Keene and Frohmann series. Despite this, I did enjoy the read. I would say that it could be read as a standalone, but there were some things from previous books that I felt I missed out on - such as events that happened with Keene's daughter and Frohmann. However, it doesn't take away from the mystery itself!

Annalise Woods is a well-known name in the small town of Lilling. Her claim to fame? She was taken and her body hadn't been found until years later. What happened to her? DNA testing wasn't sophisticated enough at the time and the culprit was never found. Now, decades later, they've found a match to the DNA found on Annalise's skirt she was buried with. Will there finally be justice for Annalise?

We follow a few characters throughout this novel. This is told through multiple perspectives as the cold case progresses. Laurie is a therapist and we get to see a lot of the transcripts from her patients - a woman claiming to be Annalise's secret child, and another woman named after Annalise that has begun to assume her identity and story as her own.

Winslow does a great job diving into the psychology of the characters. There's a good amount of suspense, but it's a slower moving novel. So if you like a slower paced suspense novel, then this will be a great pick for you! I did enjoy the twist at the end and the journey the reader is taken on in order to get there.

I would like to go back and read the other books in the series to get to know Keene and Frohmann better, but otherwise it was a good cold case crime novel!

I give this 3.5/5 stars - rounded up for rating

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book four in the series featuring now-retired detective Morris Keene, currently a civilian employee working cold cases, and his former partner, Chloe Frohmann, working to juggle her career with parenting as a new mother. I love the Cambridge setting, the interplay between the detectives, and the sense of unease that pervades her novels. There's always a sense that we're never going to know the full story, and that the alternating voices of the characters obscure as much as they reveal. The "celebrity" cold case that Morris investigates has ties to a more recent death, and the ramifications are fascinating; a key focus is why we (the readers), as well as the characters in this particular story, are so obsessed with victims of crime made famous by tabloid newspapers, and what this says about our communities and our culture.

[Nick Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Similar to the previous and only other book I had read by the same author ('The Red House'), this was a bit of a tangled mess. A police procedural mixed with a psychological thriller / mystery, this novel follows the complex events following two women visiting a psychologist in Cambridge, both claiming to have a family connection to a schoolgirl murdered in the 1970s in a local village.

Um. Either I'm not the sort of reader who is able to hold information about a cast of unreliably narrated characters, or the author doesn't do a good enough job of defining them. Either this prevented me from completely understanding / following the complex plot, or Winslow fails to assemble a convoluted web of coincidences and interconnections into something less than 'a batshit crazy mess'.

I was however keen to find out what happened, and even though the denouement was unbelievable, it at least was outlined in a sufficiently Scooby Doo manner that the final chapters did mainly explain what had occurred. I won't rush to read others from the series, however.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this unusual police procedure novel. The plot combined a cold case investigation with current events revealing additional yet puzzling information. Winslow uses the creative technique of multiple narrators. I was surprised at how well this moved the plot forward. I have to admit that I did forget sometimes who was narrating and that added a bit of confusion to an already very complex plot. I really appreciated the good balance of character development and investigative technique. Some of the character interaction was based on previous novels but this one did read well on its own.

I recommend this mystery to readers who enjoy thinking through a complex plot in which some suspects present lies and some of the evidence seems contradictory.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book through Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours. My comments are an independent and honest review.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this in a Goodreads giveaway.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I was not disappointed. It was fast-faced and written very well. There were a lot of things happening in the book but the author did an excellent job tying them together so they pertained to the main plot and the reader didn't get confused.

The only complaint I have about the book, and why I didn't give it five stars, is that the ending was, in my opinion, anti-climactic.

It's well worth a read and I recommend it to suspense and mystery readers.

[Kristine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest- I didn't like the first book in this series but I didn't realize that till I sat down to write this review and saw my comments on that one. What a difference this made. No spoilers but it seems to me that Winslow has upped her game by writing a book filled with secrets, lies, and I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Who was Annalise and who is actually buried in her grave? And, what happened to Annalise? Advancements in how DNA can be used is the starting point for a good mystery. Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann are on the case. These two have a history - some of which I missed but that was OK. There's good interplay between them. This is in many ways your basic procedural but there are some nifty twists. It's a good read. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC (and for reintroducing me to Winslow's work.).

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a link to my review:
https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/20...
3.5 stars, rounded up At times creepy but as I grew to know the characters, I began to enjoy this novel about a cold case with unexpected ties to the unnerving present.

[Asheley T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look For Her by Emily Winslow involves two detectives working to solve a cold case from the 1970’s: young Annalise Wood’s body was discovered years after she went missing. Now new DNA evidence has surfaced, and detectives are searching for new leads. This is a quick-moving, character-driven detective story. There are multiple perspectives, including the POV of a girl that is more than a little bit obsessed with the missing/murdered girl and the POV of the therapist that sees a couple of clients that are connected to this case. Some of the characters are a little on the sketchy side, and while this sometimes frustrated me as a reader, I think this was intentional and only added to the tension and mystery of the story.

Because this was a decades-old cold case, and because there were some unreliable sketchy characters, and for other reasons: there were several dead ends. There were also some character deaths and some therapist-client privilege and several things that made it nearly impossible for me to figure out any part of this case. The twist at the end was spectacular.

I’m curious about Detectives Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann. While they get along just fine now, it is clear that they had a fight or a falling-out of some sort in the previous story, and while it alluded to this multiple times, I never could get a firm enough grasp on what happened to really understand why these two began the story at odds. I never could shake the fact that these two had a major history that I wasn’t privy to. More than either of the detectives, I felt a connection to the therapist that was dealing with grief over losing her first husband — even while married to her second. I’m not sure if she is a regular character in this series or not, but her relationships with her family and her thought processes were fascinating to me. All of this being said, this book is written as a standalone, but it is in fact the fourth in the Keene and Frohmann series. Be aware that past cases are mentioned and that it will make you want to go back and start at the beginning of the series.

Sidenote: the way communities and people grieve over victims is fascinating and this story is a great reminder of this. It is interesting to see how some victims are mourned and grieved, and kept alive through the media and word of mouth for months or years; others are forgotten quickly. This book is not heavy-handed with that sentiment at all, but it is just something that I reflected on while I was reading and even after I finished the book as I thought about real life news stories for a few minutes.


I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you, William Morrow Books!

Find this review and more like it on my blog, Into the Hall of Books!

[gem · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sent this book by the publisher, and I am so happy they sent it to me.
I've never read any of Emily Winslow's books before, but after reading this I will certainly be adding her to my Must Read list of authors!

Look For Her is the third book in the D.I Chloe Frohman series, and although I haven't read the previous two books I was immediately drawn into the book. The plot itself is brilliant, it takes the premise of a long dead teenaged girl whose become almost legendary in her local area and ties it together with a whole host of secrets, lies and betrayal from the current day to create an intricate and compelling story.
DI Frohman herself is a great character, and the interactions between her and her colleague, Keene, were hilariously funny at times and touching at others. The book alludes to something which happened in the previous one, but hasn't spoilt it so I will definitely be going back to find out exactly what went on! Their investigation into the cold case involving the death of Annalise Williams takes a dramatic turn when new DNA evidence comes to light that could either make or break the case...
There are a few main characters as well as the detectives involved, and each of those is well defined and propel the story forwards, particularly Dr Lauren Ambrose as she connects all the characters together. Her narrative is fascinating, as whilst she is counselling others during her sessions, she herself is struggling with her own grief.
Anna Williams and Hannah-Claire are both very interesting - it's clear they are both hiding secrets and are not quite as they seem and this element of the story really is brilliant (I don't really want to say much as it's better to read it without a clue as to what's happening!).
The tension steadily builds with each chapter, and each character seems less and less reliable as the ending nears...
There are shocks and twists aplenty and i honestly did not see the ending coming!
I absolutely loved this book, I would urge any fans of Jane Casey, Alex Marwood or S.K.Tremayne to read this asap.

[Stephanie Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

'Look For Her' is one of the better mystery/thrillers that I've read in awhile. The plot wasn't wholly original, but the author gave it plenty of twists to make it stand out from others in the genre. One thing that I absolutely loved about the book was the writing style. The author chose to write from the first person point of view, which is my favorite to begin with. But then she made it even better by having several different narrators. I love the inside knowledge and depth of the connection the reader gets with the first person. I always feel like I can identify so much easier in this style. The fact that the author chose to have multiple narrators was fantastic and a wonderful pick for the novel. I loved getting to know each of the main characters and to see the happenings of the story unravel from each of their viewpoints. It gave the plot a complexity that you normally don't get to experience. Another little bonus was the addition of transcribed therapy sessions from one of the main characters and her patients important in the story. I loved this surprise and thought it brought the book up even more in my opinion. I can't discuss much in the way of plot or details with the story or characters because everything and everyone is so entwined and I don't do spoilers in my reviews. I very highly recommend this book for fans of mystery, thrillers, suspense, contemporary and crime fiction!

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5

This was the first book I’ve read by this author and even though it’s number 4 in a series, I didn’t mind starting here. The backstory would have been nice to have, but she did a good job relaying what happened previously.

The premise was so great, but I found this a little convoluted for me. Perhaps I was reading this too quickly, but I couldn’t keep all the plot lines straight. This wasn’t a very long book and yet I felt a little confused on who was who and how they all fit in together. Perhaps my problem was that there was an Anna, Annalise, Dr. Ambrose and I just couldn’t separate them. Their voices seemed to blend too much for me.

I loved the opening with the therapy transcript and those were my favorite parts. Perhaps my hesitation to like this more was that I thought it was going to be creepier. The opening hooked me and then some of the rest of it felt more like soap-opera-drama than anything else, though Anna is very a disturbed young woman. I also felt like the finale wasn’t really living up to what I had imagined it would be and it was way too far-fetched for me to believe it could have happened.

Because this story has some twists and it’s unclear how it all fits together until the end, I’m not going to say any more. I also recommend not reading many reviews to avoid spoilers.

[Jo | Booklover Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a long time fan of Emily Winslow’s writing style. In addition to her searingly honest memoir Jane Doe January , I highly recommend previous titles in this crime fiction series The Start of Everything (Book 2) and The Red House (Book 3).

From the opening lines of Look for Her , a psychologist’s transcript of a session with a client, Winslow’s talent for characterisation and building suspense is once again on display. The alternating first-person narrative structure places readers deep inside the minds of characters (old and new), offering unfettered access to their hopes and fears, rational or otherwise. Read full review >>

[Nancy McFarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful young girl disappears on her way to school. Years later her body is found but the murderer is never caught. Morris Kaufmann is now a cold case inspector and when DNA is finally recovered from the clothes of the young girl he thinks he is well on his way to making a huge name for himself, as the abduction and murder of Annalise Wood received much notoriety at the time of the abduction and years later when the body was found. He seeks help from his old partner, Chloe, and they soon discover that the one thing they thought they knew – that the body was that of Annalise - is now in question. Look For Her is a terrific psychological thriller with many twists and turns. The sensationalization of the abduction and murder affected many people as did the lies told by those close to Annaliese. It is up to Morris and Chloe to figure out who was buried in Annalise’s clothes and who murdered her, and how two unrelated patients of a local psychiatrist, both of whom were obsessed with Annalise, might be involved in the case.

[Elissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this ARC from a goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book and gave it 4 out of 5 stars because while it kept me intrigued it isn't something I think will end up on my favorites of the year. I didn't know it before I entered the contest but this was the fourth book in a series. My library didn't have the previous books, so I went ahead and read this alone. I think that while it works fine as a stand alone book, there are some references to things I didn't know because of not having read the other books. This story switches narrators between I believe 4 different characters. I enjoyed each character's perspectives, except one, but getting that perspective was necessary for the book. The book kept my interest throughout but I believe it got stronger as it went along which is always better than vice versa. I predicted a part of the ending but the main storyline's conclusion I didn't see how that was all going to play out until it did.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annalise Wood achieved celebrity on the worst day of her life. The disappearance of the teenage girl in the 70s was a staple in media coverage, sparking multiple books and continuous interest in the unsolved case. When her body showed up decades later, no killer was found, and the mystery remained. However, a DNA match finally brings a suspect into the picture, and investigators Keene and Frohmann begin attempting to unearth long-buried secrets, wondering whether the girl who was found is even Annalise.

I’ll start things off by saying that I didn’t know this book was the fourth in a series, and I haven’t read any of the three preceding it. I saw that the author said the book could be read as a standalone, so I jumped in. I think being new to the series and coming in on book four impacted how I read it, and I wonder if this rating would be higher if I was familiar with the series already.

Part of the three-star rating I’m giving this book was the fact that I never felt connected to the two main police characters, Morris Keene and Chloe Frohmann—Keene in particular. Winslow includes a lot of references to previous books and intricate interpersonal issues that have altered both their careers and their relationship. While she skims the headlines of these issues, so much of what seemed to be going on between the characters did feel like it depended on a more in-depth knowledge. I can appreciate that she didn’t want to give too much away for readers like me who may pick up the book and then seek out 1-3 in the series, but it was hard to connect to the characters because of this. I didn’t feel like I got to know them very well, and as a result I wasn’t particularly invested in their characters. The book rotates through first-person perspectives, none of which have distinct voices, which further made it difficult for me to get to know Morris and Chloe. The only character whose storyline I found myself interested in was Laurie’s, who is presumably not in any of the previous books and came across better developed to me as a result. In fact, I found myself wishing that the entire book was told from her POV. Morris and Chloe provided some information from the police side that Laurie wouldn’t be privy to, but these sections felt like ways to push the plot forward rather than develop the characters or enrich their stories.

The mystery started out very intriguing for me, and had some interesting twists and turns along the way. I ultimately wasn’t satisfied with the route the ending took, but it wasn’t necessarily bad either—I just expected something a bit more twisty. Once we read from Anna’s POV, I felt like the mystery lost some serious momentum. The link to Hannah-Claire and how they both connected to Annalise was laid out even though the book was only halfway through, which dulled my intrigue. I almost wish that Anna and Hannah-Claire hadn’t been cousins, as I think there could have been a more interesting story there. The book started off with this very interesting route of a cold case reinvigorated not only by new evidence for the police, but with the very strange coincidence of two women bringing up Annalise in therapy, both personally invested in her story. Once Winslow included Anna’s POV, I felt like the story became less a mystery about Annalise’s cold case and more a family drama that only loosely touched on Annalise’s disappearance as a matter of local lore, not any sort of real connection. This family mystery was much less intriguing to me, and the story ended up going in a much different direction than I’d expected. Winslow did tie up all the loose ends and made sure everything was connected, so the mystery wasn’t poorly conceived or missing pieces of information. It just shifted pretty abruptly and wholly from the mystery I’d been expecting based on the book’s description and the first half of the story. Tying Annalise in at the end felt more like a way to satisfy the reader’s initial curiosity—the momentum of the book had been coopted by the mystery of Hannah-Claire’s death, so Annalise felt secondary. I think it resulted in the end of her story packing less of a punch than it could have .

Despite Morris and Chloe feeling vague and undeveloped for me (again, I think as a result of how much their stories were anchored in past events that weren’t fully explained in this book), Winslow did a great job with Anna’s character. While I didn’t necessarily enjoy reading from her POV because of the content and how it revealed elements of the mystery too soon, I really enjoyed reading about her from Laurie’s POV. Even in all her strangeness and outrageous behavior, she felt like she could be a real person, especially when coupling Laurie’s perspective with the therapy session transcripts. She was creepy and diabolical, which helped keep me interested in seeing what would happen in the story.

Overall, I thought there was an interesting vein running through this story that could have been executed in a different way that didn’t leave it feeling like there were two unrelated mysteries being pushed together for the sake of the plot. I’d consider reading the first book in the series, but knowing that Morris and Chloe are the characters the series follows and I didn’t feel invested in their stories here, I’m not sure that I will.

CW: Disappearance of a teenage girl, presumed abduction/sexual assault of a teenage girl, discussion of sex crimes/rape, discussion of imprisonment, death of a spouse, emotionally distant mother, domestic abuse, car accident (person hit)