Nine Missing Girls by Steena Holmes

This is the first time I have read a book of short stories that have a common character running through them. All the stories contained in ‘Nine Missing Girls’ feature Detective Meri Amber as their main character. Meri Amber works cold cases and predominantly involving missing children. 

Detective Amber’s sister was abducted when they were children twenty yers ago. This has led to a lifelong obsession with the missing.  Each story is well written in the first person with Meri narrating her cases to us. One thing that made this book stand out is the descriptive detail contained within. Steena Holmes, through Meri, describes all the sights, sounds and smells that accompany her on this journey to find the missing children. I am not used to reading as many descriptions of smells of places and people. This added to the atmosphere that ‘Nine Missing Girls’ creates within its pages. 

This is a good crime fiction collection and I will be looking for more books by Steena Holmes in the future. I found it an enjoyable, although at times difficult, and satisfying read.