“Two Girls Down” is an almost perfect thrill-ride

Thrillers that are actual thrill rides are a source of enjoyment for me, and when I find one that is a rollercoaster ride moving so fast it almost takes your breath away, it feels as if I can’t read it fast enough. Two Girls Down easily falls into that category.

Two Girls Down starts off with Jamie Brandt, a single mother and her two young daughters in tow as she drives around to different stores around town. Jamie is rushed and distracted, trying to get last-minute birthday party supplies. Mom and older daughter, ten-year-old Kylie, aren’t seeing eye-to-eye because Kylie has changed her mind about attending her former best friend’s party. Eight-year-old Bailey’s constant demands for treats and attention aren’t helping the situation. As family tensions rise, Jamie starts to lose patience with the girls.

During the last stop, a swing by Kmart, Jamie leaves the girls in the car while she runs in to pick up a gift. Five minutes later when she returns to the car, the girls are nowhere to be seen, and a quick search of the area by officers turns up nothing.

The situation becomes more complicated when, after no ransom calls are received and the girls have been missing for several days, Maggie Shambley, Jamie’s well-off aunt, hires Alice Vega, a well known bounty hunter and investigator from California. Alice does her due diligence to look for clues where to search for answers, and she picks local investigator and retired cop Max Caplan to team up with, show her the lay of the land and liaise with the local police department.

The story progresses quickly, following threads and leads along with seeing how Alice and Cap figure out how best to work together, and therein lies most of the fun. The speed of the story, the need to keep turning the pages matches the urgency in needing to find the girls fast before all hope is gone to recover them alive. Then we take side trips that bring the story to limping pauses, before taking off at breakneck speed again.

Those breaks in the story pacing is my one singular nitpick. The ride slows down too much when the story pauses to explore the growing personal connection between Vega and Caplan. Taking a tangent to detail character development is normally something that can enrich a story, but in this rare instance, slowing this investigation down to examine the slow drawing together of two people who have emotional scars and don’t trust easily is like slamming on the brakes at 100mph. It’s a jarring shift compared to the main plot about the urgent search for the two missing girls, which does feel like it’s going at 100mph.

Otherwise, this story is a compelling, page-turning delight, where the action and the secrets and twists in the case come one after another so fast, I did not want to put the book down at all. But since I was reading the book while sitting in various waiting rooms throughout the morning and afternoon, I had no choice but to put it down a couple of times. Returning home to crash on the sofa that evening to blaze through and finish the book was a treat.

And now, I can’t wait for the next Alice Vega novel.

Don’t miss our interview: Writers, After Dark #23: Louisa Luna

When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated family hires Alice Vega, an enigmatic bounty hunter from California, to do what the authorities cannot. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemics, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan, to cut through the local politics.

Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a complex web of lies, false leads, and dangerous relationships to locate the girls before time runs out. Two Girls Down is intense, suspenseful, and boldly atmospheric from the first line to its riveting conclusion.

Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna
Series: An Alice Vega Novel, Book 1
Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (January 8, 2019)
Paperback: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0525433759
ISBN-13: 978-0525433750