I enjoyed reading this book which is the first in a series featuring DS Karen Heart. It is not dissimilar to other police procedural/ crime thrillers but that's why I enjoyed it. It is well written and the story is easy to follow. There's plenty of background information on the main characters, I look forward to the follow up.

This is the first in a series and it's a good start.

DS Karen Hart has to find two missing girls, whilst dealing with her own grief and loss. It's a fast paced police drama with some twists.

There were times it felt patronising and the lead character certainly has her flaws. Overall, it's an OK read that's very similar to many others I've recently read.

Thanks to the author, Thomas and Mercer and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Two young girls go missing in a small town where usually families feel safe. DS Karen Hart is one of the officers investigating the disappearance. She believes that her current case is somehow connected to a disappearance of nineteen year old Amy Fisher who disappeared eighteen months ago.

A very interesting story and I look forward to the release of the next book. but I felt like not enough of Karen's background was really explained well. It was like all of the sudden the writer told us that her daughter and husband died in a car accident. No clear details or anything.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Two young girls go missing and now we have an all out search.
DS Karen Hart is still trying to come to terms with death of her husband and daughter, also Karen has unfinished business with another case. Eighteen months ago a nineteen year old girl went missing and has never been found.
This is the first in the Karen Hart series and I am already looking forward to the next.
The story had me thoroughly engrossed and I was up until 1.30am to finish it.
This book is full of tension, so many suspects, it is a very busy book.
A really good crime thriller.
I would like to thank the author D S Butler, Amazon Publishing UK and Net.galley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for giving an honest review.

The opening chapter of this book was very promising and written with credible realism as the two girls leave school and enter the woods.

However, by the time I reached 69% on my Kindle, I started to lose patience with how wooden a lot of the book was. The characters weren't really fleshed out or described, except by position and name. I was about a third of the way through before I realised DI Morgan was male. A lot of the action could have been edited out: details such as shutting doors and thanking the school receptionist and walking to the car were achingly dull.

I thought this book could have been really improved with more character description and more getting inside the narrators' heads. We know Karen's tragic past, but I don't feel I know Karen. There were also a lot of characters to keep up with but none that really stood out.

I've read a lot of books along a similar vein and somehow they kept me guessing, but this one didn't. It was clunky and was more like a list of events than a gripping story.

When two young girls disappear from their primary school the police mount a massive hunt. DS Karen Hart is heavily involved and can't help but draw parallels with the unsolved disappearance of 19 year old Amy Fisher 18 months previously, a case she still hopes to solve.

This book was pretty straightforward and a quick read. I did enjoy how it ended but given that I read so many of these books, I knew who did it about a third of the way through. I think most readers will be surprised at the twist though. DS Karen Hart is meant to be a great detective who relies on instinct to solve cases but in reality, she comes off as impulsive and emotional.

2.5 stars out of 5. Thanks NetGalley for the eARC.

BRING THEM HOME by DS Butler is is a great suspense novel. I had never read any of Butler's novels before but I will be on the hunt to read more from this great author.

This book was a disappointment to me. I'm such a fan of British mysteries set in rural areas. This one, about a female detective sergeant with an obsession for 3 missing persons - one young woman from an old case and two girls who've just gone missing - should have clicked on every level for me. It didn't.

From the beginning, the dialogue seemed stilted and formal, the narrative seemed to feature at least one cliche per paragraph, and the main character was problematic on many levels. I didn't mind that DS Karen Heart was unlikable; that's a category into which some of the best protagonists fall. To me, she was unprofessional and not believable. Of the dozens of police officers I've known and worked with and the thousands I've known (on both sides of the Atlantic) via the printed page, Karen Heart's interactions with her co-workers, and especially her superiors, were unique. And I mean that not in a good way.

I think we are to understand that she has a highly developed intuition that governs her police work. Instead, she came across as flighty and emotional, conforming to the very worst stereotypes of women at work.

I'm truly sorry to have to express these views; I wanted more from this book. In fact, if I hadn't received an ARC that carries the implicit expectation of writing a review, I wouldn't have finished the book.

I would like to thank Amazon Publishing UK/Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for letting me have a copy of ‘Bring Them Home’ by D S Butler in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Ten-year-old Emily Dean and Sian Gibson leave school early as they’re going to meet Emily’s “friend” who’s taking them to look at the ponies. When they don’t return home DS Karen Hart and her new Inspector Scott Morgan send out search parties but apart from the discovery of one glove in a hedgerow there’s no sign of them. Karen thinks it’s similar to the disappearance of Amy Fisher, nineteen, who was last seen eighteen months earlier.
‘Bring Them Home’, the first in a two book series, is an exciting and fast-paced thriller with engaging characters and lots of action. There are twists and turns, a number of suspects, and an ending that caught me by surprise. I was so engrossed in the story that I started reading at mid-day and couldn’t stop until I’d finished that same evening. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to book number two.

Karen Hart is a great character. She is just the right amount of feisty. Her instincts serve her well. I would have liked to have more back story. I felt that I had entered a series in the middle instead of book one. I will be looking forward to the next book.

An absolute gripping story from start to finish, 2 young girls go missing from school and no trace found
An old missing persons case is at the heart of this story and a strange family hold the key to all

Amy went missing 18 months ago, with no clues and no where to turn, How will the DI Karen Hart find clues? Then another possibly abduction occurs, this time 2 10 year olds, is there a connection? Who is the connection? Will the girls be found alive? A race against time to find out who took them. DI Karen Hart is a believable police officer, along with her team. I loved this book, I loved the storyline, loved finding out about each member of the team. Will be reading more from this author for sure

I rather enjoyed reading this book, it is extremely well-written - good use of English and sentence construction which made it flow, and the main storyline with several sub-interests are woven together seamlessly. I particularly enjoyed the relationship-building between DS Hart and her new boss which, to be honest, would probably be my main reason for a follow-up reading of a series, just to find discover how that pans-out. I felt that there was incredible detail (some of which I personally feel was unnecessary, but that's just my opinion) put into the fascinating investigation with all its twists and turns, only to feel it was all a bit 'rushed' for the conclusion. Having said that, the final narrative tied up all the loose ends, but almost as an afterthought to all the drama which had previously transpired. Not the best detective mystery I've read, but definitely not the worst.

This is a difficult one to review for me, probably more 2.5 stars than 3 unfortunately.

I liked the ideas in the book and the plot worked well. Much as I like a thriller with lots of twists and turns, I do also enjoy a more straightforward mystery. I like to read books where the detectives use good police work and logic, rather than astonishing leaps of faith or guesswork, and that's what we have here. The drawback to that was that I found some of the statements made by characters to explain what was going on were kind of obvious, and it felt like being talked down to. I think the author should trust her audience more, and have faith in their understanding and deductive reasoning powers.

Characters wise there wasn't any that I felt I really connected with. DS Hart, the main character, was annoying and a little unbelievable. She has an obsession with a local family and seems to want to do whatever she can to tie them to the disappearances. She also makes some very bad judgement calls such as entering a property without waiting for back up, and argues with her superiors regularly. I think the author is aiming for a character who is confident and a bit of a maverick, but brilliant with it, unfortunately I didn't get that feel with DS Hart. It came across more that she can't separate her emotions from the case she's working on, and isn't willing to listen to reasonable advice.

For me personally this one was a bit of a miss, and I probably won't read the next in the series. That said, fans of straight police procedural novels will like this I think.

Thanks to netgalley for the arc.

Detective Karen Hart and her team have been called in to investigate the sudden disappearance of two young girls. She see parallels between a previous unsolved case of a missing young woman and the disappearance of these two girls. She suspects a specific family, but must follow the leads she has and look beyond what she think she knows.
I did enjoy the characters, especially when the author delved into them personally and made them more individual. The story I felt would be an on the edge of your seat mystery, but it didn't turn out the way. The pace was slow and sometimes it felt repetitive. The story was subpar and was still a fairly good mystery. I found myself struggling to get through to the end because it felt a little slow to me. This is still a fairly good read and a good mystery.
Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for letting me read this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Detective Karen Hart has been called in with her team to investigate the disappearance of two young girls. She is battling her hunches that a local family are involved with the disappearance as historically when another girl went missing they were her main suspects. Can she find the girls before their bodies turn up?

I really enjoyed the different characters and the back stories with each of the main police officers and I look forward to their evolution in the next book. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Enjoyed this book although I guessed very early on who had taken the young girls. I liked the way we got to see several of the detectives characters developing hoping that we see more if them in future books

I thoroughly enjoy this book it center on two young girls who went missing from school. When lead DS Karen Hart is on the case she can't help but think that it's connect to a case she been working on ,on the missing women Amy Fisher so she focus on the Palmer family. I won't tell if they are involved or not you have read and see but I can say does have a happy ending and bring closure to a early mystery. Thank you for letting me read this book I'm looking forward to the next book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot, atmosphere, and characters. I would recommend the book to friends and family for their reading pleasure.

An unusual crime story with various substory lines leading to a happy ending and bringing a conclusion to an earlier mystery.