Nina

A feminist, redemptive crime novel about a woman, Elizabeth, who has never come to terms with the loss of her daughter, who went missing twenty-five years ago, and why she is compelled to go back to the house where her little girl, Nina, disappeared.
 
On the eve of her sixty-first birthday, Elizabeth Harte decides to run away from home, where she is living with her daughter and son-in-law. Elizabeth has experienced deep trauma in her life, including, twenty-five years earlier, the abduction of her other daughter, five-year-old, Nina. As the novel opens, Elizabeth feels both trapped and lost. It’s this deep-seeded unhappiness which pushes her to leave her home to find her daughter, in order to reconcile her present with her past. After running away, she soon crosses path with a young autistic girl called April, and it’s this relationship, alongside Elizabeth’s determination to find her missing daughter, which forge an awakening within her.
        Meanwhile, disgraced detective Nick is revisiting a series of cold cases for the Irish police. His father worked Nina’s case, back in the day, and came up empty-handed, and in despair, took his own life. Soon, young women start to go missing, resulting in a series of murders, with a pattern emerging. When Elizabeth reaches out to Nick to discuss her daughter’s disappearance, he realizes his cold cases are a crucial lead to stopping this killer from striking again.
 
This emotional and page-turning mystery is perfect for fans of Charlie Donlea, and Laura Lippman, and Ashley Flowers.

Dublin-born crime author Louise Phillips is an Irish Times bestselling author of six crime novels, five of which were shortlisted for the Best Irish Crime Novel of the Year in the Irish Book Awards. Her second novel, The Doll’s House, won the award. She has also been longlisted for the Crime Writers Association (CWA) Dagger in the Library Award in the UK for her body of work, and her fifth novel, The Hiding Game, was optioned by a major US film company.