Now You See Them

Set in 1964, Mary Higgins Clark Award–winner Griffiths’s fine fifth Magic Men mystery (after 2017’s The Vanishing Box) finds Supt. Edgar Stephens and his colleague, Det. Insp. Bob Willis, looking into the disappearance of schoolgirl Rhonda Miles, an MP’s daughter, who supposedly ran off to London to see 18-year-old matinee idol Bobby Hambro, but her father is certain that she has been abducted. Edgar and Bob are ably assisted by 19-year-old Woman Police Constable Meg Connolly, who goes undercover with Rhonda’s friends. Edgar’s wife, Emma, once a police detective sergeant but now a stay-at-home mother of three, makes some useful suggestions and investigates when she can with her female reporter friend, Sam Collins. Soon, it becomes apparent that disappearances of a local student nurse and a mod girl are connected. Griffiths mixes well-defined characters with a clever plot. Her examination of the place of women in 1960s British society should appeal to readers of procedurals and historical fiction fans. Agent: Rebecca Carter, Janklow & Nesbit (U.K.). (Dec.)