Lost

In Bolton’s eerily atmospheric third novel featuring Det. Constable Lacey Flint (after 2012’s Dead Scared), Flint befriends 11-year-old Barney Roberts, who lives with his father next door to her in South London. Barney aches to find his lost mother, who has been missing since he was four, and increasingly fears that his father may be a serial killer who’s slain a number of neighborhood boys his age in recent weeks. Though Flint is on leave from the force and continues to battle demons both personal and professional, she can’t help getting involved in the case. The stakes rise after a doctor announces on TV that all the victims died in the same horrifying way. Close-to-the-bone red herrings skillfully strewn across the detectives’ paths, convincing cop-shop procedure, and perceptively drawn secondary characters help push this contemporary crime novel ahead of the pack. Winner of two Mary Higgins Clark Awards, Bolton looks deep into the lost-soul madness of a killer and makes her vision all too horribly real. Agent: Anne-Marie Doulton, the Ampersand Agency (U.K.). (June)