The Lost Woman is the latest in the Louise Rick series by Sara Blaedel, and it is another brilliant piece of storytelling from an author I have only found last year, but she is to be found on all lists for must-read crime fiction in the past several years. Known as the Queen of Crime in her native Denmark, where the Louise Rick stories take place, Sara has quickly shown readers of crime/mystery fiction on this side of the ocean how amazing her writing, her storylines, and her characters are. Her previous two Rick's novels (there are now nine), The Forgotten Girls and The Killing Forest, have truly been gobbled up by those of us readers who are just now discovering the wonderful treasure trove of Scandinavian crime novels. And, now, with The Lost Woman, I am scrambling to go back and pick up the earlier Louise Rick books.
Louise Rick is at this point settled into her job as head of the Special Search Unit in the Copenhagen Police Department, and has even opened herself up to a new relationship with her partner at the department, Eik Nordstrom. Her foster son Jonas is away at boarding school, happily ensconced in an atmosphere conducive to his intellectual talents. So, for the first time in a long time, Louise stands to find some peace and contentment in her life. Well, not so quick, of course.
Eik has been a settling influence in Louise's life, so when he leaves the department to go buy a pack of cigarettes and doesn't return to their offices or to their apartment that night, Louise knows something is seriously wrong. Meanwhile, a woman gone missing from Denmark for eighteen years turns up murdered in her home in the small English town of Nailsea, shot through the window of her kitchen. The murdered woman, Sofie Parker, is the woman that Eik Nordstrom reported missing after a summer romance with her eighteen years ago. And, Eik is in England in jail on drunken charges. Louise, both furious and relieved, is tasked with going to England and bringing Eik home.
Louise's best friend, Camilla has just started back to work as a journalist and also becomes intrigued with the story of Sofie Parker and her disappearance and reemergence. While Louise is gathering Eik back to Denmark, Camilla is planting seeds in her editor's head of a story. Louise returns and begins to try to aid the English police in their search for information about Sofie, while distancing herself from Eik. But, the case becomes bigger than just Sofie, and it requires all of Louise's considerable skills and strength to concentrate on the larger picture. Not that Eik makes it easy to be objective, with his continued interference in matters that have a personal interest to him. When the information that Louise is putting together and the information that Camilla comes up with intersect, there is a crisis that has a short fuse lit and burning, so Louise must make decisions without emotion or distraction. Issues of life and death have never been closely intertwined.