The police have no leads. A mother is desperate to find her two missing daughters that vanished from a parking lot while she ran into the store for mere minutes. Not knowing where else to turn, the family hires Alice Vega, a bounty hunter from California, to come track down the girls. Vega has her own means of getting inside information and finding people, but wants the expertise of Max Caplan, an ex-cop, to support her in finding the missing girls. But regardless of who is looking, as the days tick on, the chance of finding the girls alive becomes more slim.
This is the type of plot that I’m drawn to. And when executed well, a reader can be brought on a twisty ride of suspense. I was drawn into the story, and questioned all the characters involved right from the beginning. Midway through, however, I started to lose interest and struggled to push through. I’m glad I did though. Again, like the beginning, the ending was strong and full of twists.
I’ll admit, I did not see this ending coming. I’ve been sleuthing my way through suspense thrillers for awhile now, and tend to make guesses towards whodunit. This though, this ending was nothing of what the novel had lead me to believe. With that, I rate this book higher than I would have had it continued as it seemed to have been going in the middle. I only wish there would have been more of the ending into the plot; more insight, an earlier lead. I think the last developments could have opened up to another novel completely. So with that, I say, push through because it will not disappoint. It will leave you questioning even the most seeming innocent of people.

It has been a while since I read a suspense novel and I was ready for something fresh from someone new. Two Girls Down sounded interesting, so I was excited to read this new book from a debut author. I found the book to move a little slower paced than I like my suspense novels to be, but I liked the book as a whole. I thought there were some great twists and intense moments that are really important for books in this genre. I also liked the aspect of the bounty hunter working with the former police officer. It made for an interesting dynamic. I could see the pair continue on as partners in a book series. I would love to see more of them together in future novels. I would recommend this book to fans of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train.

Can you imagine how you'd feel coming out of a store and the two daughters you left in the car are gone??? I'd freak out just as the mother did!

This is how the book starts and it grabbed me into the story right away. How do two girls disappear from a strip mall so suddenly and why? What a great beginning!

The story was fast paced and the characters well developed. I really enjoyed this book and would like to see a series with Cap and Vega doing private detective work. They had good chemistry together.

Looking for a good suspense novel? This is one I would definitely recommend!

* I was provided an ARC to read from the publisher and NetGalley. It was my decision to read and review this book..

Two Girls Down is a compelling mystery that grabbed me from the first page and never let go. Single mother Jamie Brandt is taking her girls to a birthday party, stops at a store to run in and pick up a present and comes out in minutes to find them gone. It’s every parents’ nightmare.

Luckily for Jamie, her aunt called in Alice Vega whose record on finding missing children is second to none. Vega has a preternatural sense of what to ask, how to make connections, and she also has the Bastard on retainer, the best hacker ever. Seeking local help, Vega connects with “Cap” Caplan, a local private investigator who mostly does divorce and skip trace jobs. He was a cop though, and she needs some connections with local police since Hollows, the cop in charge of the investigation is arrogant and refuses to work with her. Cap is skilled at reading people and putting them at ease and the two of them work together well. Not seamlessly, the push each other’s boundaries and jostle each other, but as a team they are effective.

Their investigation is coherent and systematic. There are no inexplicable leaps of logic. They read people well, they make connections, and while it seems almost magical how they get ahead of the police, it’s rooted in skills and research, not in something off the page. This has all the fairness of a good procedural. It is also very complex, particularly given that I intuited the guilty party one first meeting, though there was no reason to do so. It was a visceral dislike and their guilt was wish fulfillment, but I was happy to have my wish fulfilled.



Two Girls Down is more than a suspenseful thriller with a complex plot. The investigation may drive the pace of the story, fast and headlong, moving quickly and relentlessly, but the art is in the relationship between Vega and Cap, how they get to know each other and work together. There is also Cap and Nell, his daughter, and how they talk to each other with such love and integrity. It’s a beautiful relationship.

There’s so much compassion for people in this story, even for some of the miscreants and failures, the drug addicts, the lost souls. Cap, in particular, seems to find human connection with so many. Vega is more complicated, but while she’s bruised, she is not broken. There is a ruthlessness to her that I like when paired with Cap’s empathy. They balance each other. I picked Two Girls Down up just before going to bed, intending to read a couple pages, just to get me started, and a few hours later, the mother Jamie is frantic because a week has passed. I was shocked, how could a week pass? I was only going to read for a few minutes. That took me out of the book enough to finally go to sleep at 4 a.m. So, while I recommend this book highly, be sure you don’t start it when you have a deadline hanging fire, you will completely ignore it to follow Cap and Vega.

I received an e-galley of Two Girls Down from the publisher through NetGalley.

Two Girls Down at Knopf Doubleday | Penguin Random House
Louise Luna author info

“Two Girls Down” by Louisa Luna
She’ll only be a minute. That’s what Jamie Brandt thought when she carelessly left her two girls in the car while dashing into K-Mart to buy a birthday gift. An action that she later regretted when she returned to her car a few minutes later to find her girls missing.
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book! When I began, I thought, OK, another deadbeat parent who pays absolutely no attention to her children and whines when something bad happens to them.
In the first few pages of the book, Jamie Brandt declares she “was not a bad mother”. Really? Curse words, alcohol and drugs just to make it through a short drive and kid’s birthday party? I hated her from the first few pages of the book.
Cue Alice Vega. She is called in by Jamie’s wealthy and much more high class Aunt to find the girls as her specialty is locating missing children. Alice enlists the aid of Max Caplan, a local disgraced policeman turned private investigator.
The book details their attempts to find the girls and those responsible. I don’t want to give anything away, but it was fantastic! I could not put it down. The twists and turns to get to the end were great and the reasoning behind the disappearance was a unique twist.
My only issue with the book was that the author mentioned three security guards at K-Mart. I have never known a K-Mart to have three security guards on duty at one time!
In the end, I cut Jamie some slack. Mother of the year? No. But she is a single mother and does love her girls. After all, sometimes even I dream of putting another beverage in my travel mug to get through another birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese!
According to the notes at the end of the book, this is the author’s first foray into adult literature. She has written a couple of YA books. However, Goodreads lists another first published in 2004. This one was good enough that I plan to read her others!
Publication Date: January 9, 2018
Genre: Thriller, suspense, mystery, crime, detective
Cover: OK
Rating: 4.5 stars (rounded to 5)
Source: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Thank you for the opportunity to read this great book!

Product Details

This was surprisingly good for genre fiction.



Review copy provided by publisher.

Need a page-turner of a mystery for your next vacation read? Here it is. At first, the plot line might seem a bit ordinary: young mom, whose life choices are not always wise, parks her car at K-Mart to grab a birthday party present, leaves her two young daughters in the car, and yes, upon returning, the girls have vanished. However, thanks to the two main characters, this is not your ordinary thriller. Alice Vega, a bounty hunter and all-around bad-ass, is hired by the wealthy aunt to find the two girls. Vega has a golden reputation, made famous by media attention, in bringing home missing kids. Once she arrives in the small Pennsylvania town, Vega needs a partner and a way in to the police department information. Enter Max Caplan (aka Cap), a former policeman who resigned in disgrace, a single father of a unique teenager, and a private detective currently involved in spying on cheating spouses. Cap sees Vega's wily tricks that get her through impossible situationsand understands the demons that drives her; Vega sees the heart of gold under Cap's gruff exterior and his keen instinct for bad guys. It is an entertaining race with these two to find these girls as they meet some unique characters both inside and outside the law.

A small town in Pennsylvania, a town considered safe, a mother makes a mistake with horrific results.A single mom in a hurry, she leaves her you get daughter's in her vehicle and runs into Walmart to grab a last minute birthday gift. When she returns to her vehicle, she experiences a parents worst nightmare. Her girls are gone.

The grandmother hires Alice Vega, a bounty Hunter who specializes in finding missing children. When she gets into town she hires Cap, an ex policeman who has a storied past with the department. I enjoyed both these characters, Vega is a take no holds, follow no rules kind of woman. Her only goal is to find these two young girls, preferable alive. She is a match for any man, tough, trained and deadly. Cap, divorced, finds her intriguing, and he is equally committed to their goal. They compliment each other wonderfully. Cap, the more tender of the two, not that he isn't her match in toughness, but because his teenage daughter Nell, keeps him grounded. She is an amazing in young woman, with a sharp insight of her own. The relationship between Nell and Cap is warm and so endearing.

I'm expecting great things from this series which is off to a prodigious start. It is perfectly balanced, between personal and case, which I admit has been difficult to find in my recent reading. The characters are fully fleshed, intriguing and I look forward to what I hopefully expect will be their further partnership.

ARC from Netgalley and Doubleday.

Two Girls down by Louisa Luna is a fast paced mystery driven by great characters.
In a small Pennsylvania town, two girls Kailey and Bailey gets kidnapped. Their mother’s family hires the bounty hunter Alice Vega to find the missing girls.
Alice Vega has a great track record in finding missing people. It’s her specialty.
“So you find missing people, that right? How many people have you found so far? “
“Eighteen”
“How many times have you been hired is the real question?”
“Eighteen”
When Vega lands in Pennsylvania, She is immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic. So she requests the help of a disgraced former cop Max Caplan and the odd duo team up together to bring the girls home.
This book is the perfect blend between action and building up the mystery. The first half of the book is full of action, binge worthy and impossible to put down. Then it slows down, giving away to the mystery part of it.
Alice Vega is a no nonsense character. She acts first and thinks later. Oh man! The scene at the construction site, That did make an impression (She reminded me of Jack Reacher). As a former cop, Cap is great at interrogation and he makes up for Vega’s quirky behavior. Alice and Cap make a commanding pair and they do have chemistry. To me, Cap did not make a great impression at first but as I learnt more about his past and his relationship with his teenage daughter Nell, I ended up liking him. Vega’s character is still a mystery and a bit incomplete. We see bits and pieces about her past but I am pretty sure there is more to it. I am looking forward to read more of her (If this becomes a series!!)
Thanks to Double day books and netgalley for ARC.
To put it all together, Two girls down is a compelling thriller that won’t disappoint. 4/5 Stars.

Thx to Netgalley, Doubleday Publishers, and Louisa Luna for this ARC. I love when I find a new author that can take what could be just another mystery/thriller and put a new spin on it. This one did just that. Alice Vega is a protagonistic female heroine and Cap is a disgraced former police officer who team up to find 2 missing girls.. There are multiple characters that you need to actually think about and multiple storylines which will keep you guessing. I loved this book and hope this author continues on with these characters . It would make a great series.

The book itself drew me in because I enjoy suspense and was excited that Book of the Month had chosen it as a January box pick. I couldn't put this book down because I wanted to know if both girls were going to make it. Vega was a very unique and strong character that brought a lot of the action to the story. The plot was built in a manner where there various layers to the story, it wasn't a typical story because you kept learning new things as the story went on. Thank you Netgalley & Doubleday for this e-copy.

Jamie wondered how the girls could care so much about what other people think. Kylie is ten years old and Bailey is eight. Jamie wishes for a simpler time with her two girls. The girls now always seemed to need or want something. All Jamie wanted was a few seconds of peace. They are on their way to a birthday party and are detoured to a different way by a cop. They stop at a strip mall and Jamie goes in for a present leaving the car idling and the girls in it.Jamie comes out of the store about ten minutes later and the car is there but the girls are gone. Later after looking at a tape after Jamie had went into the store the girls were seen going into a ice cream shop and sampling all the samples. The cops are stretched thin because of budget cuts and a drug epidemic and don’t really help Jamie to find her girls. Jamie’s aunt hires Linda Vega who is a bounty hunter with a good record of finding missing persons. Linda has the assistance of a of a computer hacker called “ The Bastard” who begins to dig up information. The cops won’t help Alice so she goes to Max “Cap” Calan - a former police detective who took the fall for a young cop with a wife and two kids. So Cap resigned and is now trying to move on with his life and is a P I. Cap’s sixteen year old daughter convinces him to work with Alice. Alice and Cap are making some process finding the girls. They have to decide which leads are false and which leads have potential to gain information from. Max and Alice are very opposite.
This was a great book with some dark parts in it. I didn’t want to put this down and it kept my attention from beginning to end. I loved the plot and the fast pace. This was a well written book that was both suspenseful and had a lot of action in it. There was also a lot of tension. I would have liked more backstory for Alice and Cao . This book has a realistic feeling to it. I loved how Cap was a and listened to his sixteen year old daughter . Reading this book was like being on a roller coaster ride. I will say I did hope for more from the end but I still felt this deserved a five rating. I love the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I highly recommend.

Excellent book, really gripping mystery combined with an awesome female character and a great male (work) partner. This reads like the start of a series, which I would welcome as Vega and Caplan make a great team. This book reminded me a bit of the Dennis Lehane Kenzie and Gennaro series, which is a huge compliment. Highly recommend and look forward to more from this author.

I really enjoyed the spunk of Vega, and her strong personality, and overall get it done attitude. Cap is trying to find his way back after being let go from the police force after taking the fall for a friend. He is a little more by the book but also really smart. I liked the two paired together and would love to see this as a series.

There were at least two sections of the book that I found to be really offensive in terms of derogatory language toward two different groups, which prevents me from giving it 5 stars.

Alice and Max were a great team. I loved watching the two of them play off each other, starting with suspicion and disdain and ending with teamwork and triumph. The missing girls plot was thinner than I would have preferred. Although I was interested the entire time, this story did not quite reach the level of "page-turner."

By the 1% point on my kindle, the author had already saturated the book with the f word, cursing involving God, ( I really hate that! I find it very offensive. ) and sex. It continues along that vein from beginning to end. Of course, the police and private investigators use lots of profanity, because this is the stereotypical way they speak in all recent books I have read. In this book, even a few of the children use some profanity. After a while, it really got to be overdone.

The mother of the missing girls, Jamie, is vulgar and proud of it. She thinks her daughters will remember her as cool when they get older because she used the f word in front of cops. She is also proud of her older daughter because she is a flirt and is picking up her bad habits. This daughter is ten. Basically, I didn’t find Jamie to be a likeable character.

I did sympathized with Cap, the ex-cop who resigned from the police force so a friend wouldn’t lose his job; he seemed like a decent guy who ended up stuck doing work he wasn’t happy doing. On the minus side, since he is an as an ex-cop he also has to do his share of cursing: stereotyping again. Cap’s daughter, Nell, was a shining light in this book. Nell was a good daughter. She was very intuitive about people and the reasons they behaved the way they did; she chose to make good decisions. There was a big difference in the parenting styles between Cap and Jamie; it showed in the way the children behaved.

The female Private investigator, Vega, used forceful tactics that probably should have ended up with her in jail; she enjoyed getting into physical altercations a bit too much and at times her behavior was way over the top. The author did a slow reveal of Vega’s earlier years, but it wasn’t enough for me to really feel sorry for her or like her.

While the mystery was well played out with twists and turns, I didn’t care for the non-stop bad language. There were also a lot of characters I did not like. I’m giving this book a 2. On Goodreads that means it was ok; a fair score for this book.

Most avid readers have our irresistible elements and tropes (for me: hate to love books, tough-girl-with-a-soft-center stories, coming of age themes, road trip books and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting.) Then I think most of us also have a mental list of those kinds of stories that we just don't want to touch.

Books about bad things happening to children and animals are at the top of my No Thanks list.

So. What made me try Two Girls Down when the blurb started out: when two young sisters disappear??  idk ... but it was probably the phrase "enigmatic bounty hunter Alice Vega." I'm a sucker for a tough-girl thriller heroine.

My takeaway: always trust your instincts, in reading and in general.

Yes, the book did involve stuff that made me really uncomfortable. But I also thought that Two Girls Down was a really, really strong book. One of the best in the suspense/mystery/thriller genre that I've read in a while. (tbh I read thrillers non-stop in the 90s and only have been getting back into them recently...)

What did I love about Two Girls Down?

--Alice Vega was just as great as promised. She's like a female Jack Reacher - a no-nonsense former army recruit who now works efficiently and tirelessly to find missing people. She's a woman of few words and a lot of action.

--Max "Cap" Caplan was just as awesome. Yes, the whole disgraced/disgruntled former cop is a big trope, but I loved Cap, his relationship with his teenage daughter Nell, and the very tentative and quietly sizzling partnership he develops with Alice.

--The writing was really top-notch. Apparently Louise Luna wrote a couple of YA's back in the 00's. Nothing on my radar ... though I wasn't blogging back then. But she can really write. I always hope for competent writing in a thriller, but Two Girls Down had some moments that made me close the book for a moment and pause, either because something was so sharply observed or just hit me hard emotionally.

--The plotting was great too. I loved the fact that Two Girls Down did lay out all the clues that I needed to figure things out .... and that I did not figure anything out at all. This one really kept me guessing ... and on the edge of my seat.

--When I thought about it, Two Girls Down was a LOT about different types of parent/child relationships. And the fact that once you're a parent, you pretty much do the best you can and then worry non-stop. 

--My hiatus from thrillers got me thinking a lot about what kind of stories and images I want in my head space. Also the fact that I don't love that a lot of thrillers (and thriller-y movies) can glorify and objectify violence in a way that desensitizes us to its repercussions. I appreciated the fact that while Two Girls Down dealt with some really unpleasant and horrifying subjects, it never shied away from the very real suffering that violence and crime can cause. Two Girls Down was a disturbing book, but also a incredibly empathetic one. Ultimately, that's what kept me reading.

I definitely recommend this one if you're a fan of suspenseful thrillers and police procedurals.

This story resonated on so many levels. First of all, Alice Vega, prickly and socially inept, felt like a real life person I might know, someone that I might not like initially but that would probably grow to like over time. Second was the story of unraveling the girls' disappearance. You can't help but wonder about the randomness of real life incidents like this. How often is it a series of happenings that intersect at just the wrong time? This is a book that you will enjoy, but it will also make you think after you have flipped the last page. I want to see more of Vega and Cap. And Nell!

*ARC via netgalley*

Two Girls Down is a great book. It’s a thrill ride of epic proportions. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It’s chock full of one liners and one bad ass female bounty hunter/private investigator named Alice Vega from California. Alice is hired to go to Denville, Pennsylvania to locate two young sisters who went missing from a mall parking lot. Alice does her job with precision and doesn’t let anyone or anything get in her way. She also enlists the help of former cop turned private investigator Max Caplan who has his own dragons to slay considering that he left his police career in disgrace.

There was no shortage of suspects concerning the girls’ disappearance. The police are clueless. Alice has resources that are uncanny. She has a hacker named The Bastard who can get her all kinds of information. Max’s role ends up being the anchor since he was able to stop her from being completely unhinged. In her own words, Alice is “The Motherf*cker Who Gets Sh*t Done.” She is relentless and bows down to no one. Even when she gets hit in the face with a wooden board, she just shakes it off. In another instance, she subdues several guys with items she picked up from a hardware store. She is clearly the Black Widow. It’s hard to believe that she only went through basic training in the Army. I could go on and on about her attitude and sheer confidence but you’ll just have to read it for yourself. Two Girls Down was amazing. The story and the characters are well written. I can’t give much detail because it’s a mystery at its core. There is never a dull moment and you will never figure out who done what until the big reveal.

I hope that Alice’s story doesn’t end here. She has a lot of depth and I can see a bright future in sequels for her.

Sorry I don't think I requested this, perhaps I received a widget? At any point this doesn't really sound like my thing but thank This is a very well done, page turning, high tension mystery/thriller. I was engaged from the very first page and read it in two sittings. Ms. Luna’s writing is smooth flowing and her characters are very well described, in particular the two main characters in the book. The only thing I didn’t like about the book was that in parts the back stories on Alice Vega, the private investigator and the ex-policeman that she engages, “Cap” Max Caplan, get a little wordy. At some points I just wanted the story to move forward without the extensive internal dialogue about what these characters traumatic histories were.
As the blurb explains, Jaime Brandt, a young mother, leaves her two daughters, ages eight and ten, Bailey and Kylie in the car while she runs into the store to pick up a birthday gift for a party her daughter is about to attend. When she returns to the car, both of the girls are gone. After frantically searching the stores in the mall and the parking lot, she enlists the help of the police.
The police force is extremely short handed and overworked. They work the case but things don’t seem to be moving along quickly enough. Jaime’s parents hire a private investigator, Alice Vega, known for finding missing children to help with the case. Alice in turn hires an ex policeman, Max Caplan to help her since he knows the workings of the local police form having retired from the force a few years previously under somewhat dubious circumstances.
Alice and Max make a great pair. Alice has her own “techy” whom she enlists whenever she is digging for information on any of the families or others that may have known the girls. He provides lots of information about location, history, etc a lot more quickly than the police do. This of course leads to some “locking of the horns” between the local police and the PI’s. Eventually the search gets so frantic that the FBI is called in and it’s seen to be imperative that they share information.
The story is a good one, although horrifying as a parent and grandparent to read. The psychopath and equally disturbed partner have committed some unspeakable crimes and I was only able to breathe easily again after they were caught, it felt that intense to me at some points.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a fast paced, character driven thriller. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley, thank you.
you for the opportunity.