Lost

DI Vincent Ruiz awakens from an eight-day coma and can't remember what happened to him. He's been shot and nearly drowned. Apparently he was not on official police business, and a particularly distasteful member of the cops-who-monitor-cops squad is after him. His supervisor wants nothing more to do with him. Other than that, he's in pretty good shape.

It's an interesting twist on the standard mystery: instead of searching for clues to learn new things, Ruiz looks for familiar things to unlock his memories of what happened on the night he was shot. Robotham does a nice job of parceling out the memories in chunks, like having the detective find clues at a certain pace. I noticed several interesting techniques: the memory angle, the show more maintenance of tension via pressure from the hostile boss and the "IA" goon, the description of physical reactions that tell us about Ruiz's emotional reactions to events. Robotham also gives us a succession of resolutions, and he handles this technique nicely.

Ruiz's first-person narration strays from hard-boiled, no-nonsense types by giving us more feeling, particularly his sense of guilt, his mixed feelings about his family, and his frustration about the case. He and several others are well realized characters. Overall a well-written thriller. show less

A long while back I read #4 in this series. I liked it a lot and have no clue why I didn't start with #1 or even read another in the series. My brother reminded me about the series recently and that's why I came back. Not leaving now. One thing that I really liked about this book is the plot trick. It starts in the middle with the guy waking up with amnesia and progresses as he remembers. It was very effectively used here with a strong story that I enjoyed a lot.

Detective Inspector Ruiz got shot (twice), nearly drowned and has lost his memory of the days in which critical events took place in a case that has tormented him for three years. Obviously amnesia isn’t a new plot device but it’s used with great skill here. The way Ruiz re-creates the events conveys his frustration and fear beautifully.

The story cracks along at a rapid pace while at the same time including detail and back story where necessary so that the characters are wonderfully complex. Robotham is a dab hand at getting to the nub of writing people because even minor characters that only appear for a page or two are so perfectly depicted that you quickly develop a real sense of them.

For fans of Robotham’s earlier novel, The show more Suspect, this book provides an enjoyable opportunity to meet up with Joe O’Loughlin again, although this time he is more competent professional than the rattled major-crime suspect he was in the earlier outing. As someone who is growing tired of never-ending book series and their repetitive protagonists I thoroughly enjoyed this approach to incorporating known characters in a book. show less

The Parkinson's angle isn't as pronounced in Lost because Joe isn't the central figure. Instead he's now Ruiz's friend and becomes his sounding-board. Ruiz counts on Joe's near prescient insight into human behavior, habitat and habits. Like in Suspect, Ruiz isn't guilty of what people suspect. He truly can't remember why he was on the boat, what happened to everyone on it and where the missing diamonds are. After his one ally is taken out in the line of duty, he has no one and the equivalent of Internal Affairs is gunning for him. Through breaks in his memory and deduction he knits up the unraveled past and finds the real truth to the 3-year-old murder and the events on the boat.

I particularly liked how well Robotham conveyed Ruiz's show more frustration to the reader. I wanted to know what happened as badly as Ruiz did, but like him, I couldn't find out. Not right away. And the way sections of his memory returned and how they helped him connect up the facts was well done, too. It kept things off-balance yet moving forward at the same time. Little things would come to him after a big chunk of the missing time returned and he'd be able to get a little further. In hindsight, the solution to the kidnapping and the murder should have been less of a surprise to me. I had a bit of a "doh" moment there at the end. What I wish we had a bit more of was what happened with Ruiz at the end. Did he get back on the force or not? Maybe in the next book we'll find out. show less

Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz seeks help from psychologist Joe O’Loughlin after he inexplicably finds himself in the Thames, clinging to a buoy with no memory of the events that landed him there. Frustrated by his inability to recall what happened, he sets out to find the answers his memory refuses to reveal.

In short order he finds himself retracing his steps in a kidnapping case from three years earlier, a case in which everyone except Vincent believes the young victim died. Despite his frustration with the sporadic and unpredictable return of his memories, Vincent is determined to put the pieces together and find the answers.

Convincing, well-rounded characters, a twisting plot, and a fast pace all combine to keep the pages show more turning; readers are likely to find it difficult to set this one aside before the final reveal.

Highly recommended. show less

Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz can hide his own Eater eggs. Why? Because when he was pulled from the Thames River nearly dead, he had amnesia. He also finds that he has two million pounds in diamonds that he can't remember. One of his old cases, the disappearance of Mickey Caryle and the diamonds seem somehow to be connected, but how? Ruiz must find the answers if he is to live with himself and save his career. A very good book.

Cop gets fished out of the Thames with a bullet hole in his leg, but can't remember how he got there. Tries to resume the case of the girl who was kidnapped 3 years earlier. Lots of twists, easy read, but a little slow in parts.