Stolen Things by R.H. Herron starts off really strong. The action begins right away and pulls you right in. I wish that would have lasted the entire book. 

Laurie is a former police officer, now a 911 Dispatch Officer and one evening gets a call no mother could ever imagine. Her daughter JoJo is on the other side of the line and needs help now. Told from Laurie and JoJo's perspective the crimes unravel. This book also has some politically hot topics intertwined throughout. If you enjoy crime thrillers you will enjoy this one. I just wish the middle was a little faster paced!

This book was quite suspenseful! And definitely had me on the edge of my seat. I think the author did a great job in developing the characters. I felt that they brought to light a lot of sensitive subjects (police brutality, sexuality, absue/mental health and family dynamics etc.).  In the story JoJo is a teenager who is in love with her best friend and really struggles to understand what that means. Her and her bff are active members in CapB which is Citizens Against Police Brutality. They are hanging out and next thing you know, her bff Harper is missing, Jojo has been raped and someone is dead. JoJo's parents are part of the police force and are all hands on deck trying to solve the series of crimes. As more is unfolded, we learn that there is crime and corruption within the police. The twist and turns that this book takes keeps you guessing. I would highly recommend reading if you want a fast paced thriller.

This book was not my cup of tea.  I felt like it tried too hard to be relevant and that ruined the story for me.  If I could have seen past that I think it would have been a good suspenseful thriller.

I started reading this book, but did not finish it. I read a few chapters but was not interested in continuing with the story.

I always love a good female lead in my thrillers. This book was not my favorite but I definitely did not hate it either. I can not decide my feelings but I am glad I read it until the end.

Uncomfortable subject matter on several levels, but a lot of twists and turns.  Spotlighted on the Dew on 11.5.19.

Didn’t really love the political undertones in this book.  I don’t like when you can tell what the author’s stance on certain issues are while reading a work of fiction.  As a fan of mysteries and psychological thrillers, this one just didn’t do it for me.

This story starts strong and never lets up on the pacing.  I felt like something new and WTF was happening at every turn. But it wasn't overly done and felt eerily real.  There's no one in this story without any guilt - well maybe except for a couple of characters... but like with humans in real life, we all have faults. There's an outstanding feeling of realness here - the family bonds.. how you think you really know someone and then you're forced to see a side you never knew was there.  Then to have to reconcile all of that and decide how you feel after.

Teenagers think they're so grown.  Parents think they're still kids.  Really, they're in between.  The protectiveness of parents towards their children.  ALL the things behind the scenes you never see and are shocked to find out.  I just really liked how the author put all these things together.

At first I thought this was going to just be your typical cop family with a kid who got the bad end of the stick and let's see how the mystery unfolds.  I got a LOT more than I was expecting.  Unfortunately with the political climate these days and with the (now more public) displays of police brutality and racial tensions that are rising, we see this across the board via live streaming, the news, via T.V. shows, movies, books... and this novel also touches greatly on police corruption.  So at times, this definitely felt heavy.  Almost reminds me of one of the latest episodes of 9-1-1 (one of my favorite shows) and for good reason - this is loosely based on the author's experience as a 9-1-1 dispatcher and it shows.  This is the reason you read author's notes, everyone.  Sometimes it can make you see the book in a different light then you did when you were actually reading it.

Sometimes a book can try just a little bit too hard to be current and relevant and politically correct. Sometimes a book tries so hard to be those things that the book itself suffers a bit.

That happened, I think, with R.H. Herron's STOLEN THINGS.

(I'd like to state here that I just realized I finished the book today and, other than a necklace stolen years before the actual story, I have no idea what things were stolen...)

R.H. Herron says in the Author's Note at the end that Kevin, a pro football player who scandalizes the country by wearing a flag pin upside down to protest police brutality, is not inspired by or a stand-in for Colin Kaepernick but... it's hard not to see it that way. R.H. Herron says that CapB in STOLEN THINGS is not meant to be a fictionalized version of BLM but... it's a group that organizes against police brutality that targets minorities.

And it is what it is... which is fine... it was just a little too on-the-nose for my tastes.

STOLEN THINGS is one of those thriller/mysteries where everything happens and you end up wondering just how in the world everything happens to this particular character. Which is fine, just also not my favorite thing. But in this story, the things that happen to a mother, a father, and a teenage daughter are (and I guess this counts as trigger warnings too for reasons soon to be clear) - rape, underage drinking, drug use, police brutality, a heart attack, sex trafficking, corrupt cops, prostitution, sex with minors, racism (the daughter is bi-racial), theft...

There is a twist ending, and I give one star for that alone. I absolutely did not see it coming, as wild as it is, and it made me glad I saw the story through. The characters are fine. The plot was fine. The suspense factor was pretty good. The setting was fine.

It's an entirely fine book. Nothing extra special, nothing extra terrible.

If mysteries and thrillers and suspense are your thing, give it a try. Really. I'm not at all sorry I read it and it was time well spent, even if some of that time was finding faults...

(I received a copy of STOLEN THINGS through NetGalley and Dutton in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.)

I really enjoyed this fast paced thriller that draws from the headlines with regards to police corruption and racism. The mother / daughter piece was enjoyable and I was happy with those in the story who were found to be ultimately innocent.

Stolen Things is a fast paced suspense novel by R.H. Herron that takes you into the life of a law enforcement family.

Laurie, a 911 operator, is a former police officer; married to Omid, the chief of police.  They are career law enforcement employees.  Dedicated to their jobs, they have raised their teenage daughter, Jojo, amongst their fellow police officers and dispatchers; who are basically their extended family.

When Jojo becomes the victim of a terrible crime, she calls 911 and her mother answers the call.  At that moment, Laurie tries to keep her head straight to find out where her daughter is, while fighting the motherly instinct that threatens to sabotage the training that always kicks into action.

There is danger at every turn.  Laurie is racing to protect her daughter from an unknown predator, while trying to find Jojo's friend who is missing. As she chases the truth, it becomes obvious that she doesn't know who her daughter is, who her friends are or what she does when she is not home.  Jojo is a teenager pushing boundaries from the confines of the way she has been raised to follow her own truth.

Laurie's colleagues and friends are not the people that she thinks they are.  She discovers that Omid has been hiding things, making her doubt everything she believes about their life and their relationship.  Amidst the turmoil she and Jojo develop trust and mutual respect.  They get to know how much they can rely on each other, because those they trusted are not who they believed them to be.

The writer is precise and intense as she takes you along the unraveling of their lives. This story reads like a YA story when you read the teen angst and rebellion from Jojo's point of view.  The cover of this book is great, you can almost see Jojo kicking aside her shoes!

The technical part of the investigation and the stories about police dispatch/procedure/lingo dragged a bit at times.  That comes from the author's professional background. Quite often we talk about our work and while it's easy for us, it's clear as mud to someone outside the job. This doesn't take away from the writing, it's very good, but the story wrapped up too quickly with an over the top climax.  

Thank you @NetGalley @penguinrandomhouse @rachaelherron

Stolen Things by R. H. Herron is an interesting take on a parents’ worst fear - a physically traumatized daughter and her missing best friend. In this case, the parent in question is Laurie Ahmadi, a police dispatcher with the same agency her husband serves as Police Chief. When their daughter wakes up after being drugged with no memory how she got there or exactly what happened to her, and her best friend has disappeared, the Ahmadi family springs into action, desperate to solve the case. 

The characters in this book are very well-written and you come to care deeply for them through the course of the book. There are some twists and turns, and at time, you truly don’t know who you can believe and who is lying. My biggest issue with the book as a whole was trying to suspend disbelief to lose myself in the story. As a former dispatcher, I feel like I know too much about the job to read with anything less than brutal scrutiny, and there were many times I found myself rolling my eyes and huffing in annoyance at Laurie. 

I do think that for anyone without that background, or less picky than I am, would enjoy this book. It really is good; just not the book for me. 

I received a free e-copy of Stolen Things from NetGalley and Dutton in exchange for my review.

Ultimately this book was not for me. The first 25% started out so strong, but the story fell for me from there. I kept feeling like the adult characters were acting in very unrealistic ways, and the teenage daughter was also just not realistic in how she was portrayed. I did want to finish to see what happened in the end, but this one was just okay for me. 

However I seem to be in the minority because I have seen so many great reviews for it. 

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my free advanced copy.

What a great book. This pulled me in right from the first page.  I loved the author's writing style and will look forward to reading more from R H Herron! Thank you for the advanced copy.

"Stolen Things" by R.H. Herron is gripping from the start and it'll have you captivated throughout. The beginning is any mother's worst nightmare. A 911 dispatcher receives a call from her very own daughter who has no recollection of the night before or where she's at, you also discover that the daughter's best friend is no where to be found. As the story unfolds you get a dual POV from the mother and her 16 year old daughter. There are some political points woven into the story but it didn't make or break it for me. This is a thriller I'd recommend for sure.

I receive this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The cover is awesome and had me super intrigued.  In the beginning I really enjoyed reading this novel. About 1/3 of the way in I became less interested, I wouldn’t say it was bad but the beginning was so fast paced that it was hard to slow the pace that quickly once the first part of the story was over. There were political topics interwoven throughout. Police brutality, abuse of power, race, sexuality were all topics involved in the plot of this book.  All relevant topics to the times we are living in. The book had a feministic quality to it.  I really wanted more character development. It was an ok read, a lot of potential given the different pieces of the story but it left me wanting more out of it...like there was something missing. I appreciate the opportunity to check this one out. I’d read this author again.  

#stolenthings #netgalley

Oh my gosh this was an awesome psychological thriller!! I loved every twist and turn it offered. Loved the storyline and wonderfully developed characters. I really just could not put it down! 
Highly recommend!!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

What a GREAT story, especially for a new author on the horizon!  This is her first novel from what I understand, and as a former 911 call center dispatcher, I can see how she brings a lot of hands-on experience to the table..  The story begins with a rape, a murder and a missing girl. The rape takes place at a gathering of citizens protesting police brutality at a famous football player’s house outside San Francisco. Laurie, an ex-cop who is now a 911 dispatcher, and Omid, her police chief husband, spring into action when they hear that the rape victim is their daughter, Jojo..  

The story moves very rapidly, keeping the reader leafing through the chapters rapidly to see what happens next.  Chapters are short, emotional bursts of energy that fuel the quest for answers. I absolutely loved it, and it is RARE that I read through a book this quickly, but I found I could not put it down.  I couldn’t rest until I’d finished it, which is what every suspense thriller should accomplish essentially.

The plot behind the mother and daughter working together to get to the bottom of the story is very well-crafted, demonstrating two very different characters —one is fun-loving and vivacious while the other is deadly serious and efficient.  Stolen Things  confronts a slew of today’s issues—such as police brutality against black people, institutional scandal and sexual orientation—with complete conviction. It covers so many different ideas and concepts, but mostly, it explores the lengths we go to recover what is lost.  Highly recommended to any avid reader looking for that high-thrill chase and family drama.  Bravo!

Whoof. Any book that starts out with a 911 operator receiving a call at work from their daughter is bound to be an exciting ride. This story of a mom trying to piece together the story of what happened to her daughter is fantastic. It kept me guessing for quite some time.The idea of waking up in such a terrifying position - not knowing what happened to you, or why there is a dead body in the house you are in... absolutely terrifying.

This had me hooked since the beginning. A great psychological thriller, that will have you burning through the pages. 

Laurie Ahmadi has worked as a 911 police dispatcher in her quiet Northern California town for nearly two decades. She considers the department her family; her husband, Omid, is its first Arab American chief, and their teenaged daughter, Jojo, has grown up with the force. So when Laurie catches a 911 call and, to her horror, it’s Jojo, the whole department springs into action.

Jojo, drugged, disoriented, and in pain, doesn’t remember how she ended up at the home of Kevin Leeds, a pro football player famous for his on-the-field activism and his work with the CapB—“Citizens Against Police Brutality”—movement. She doesn’t know what happened to Kevin’s friend and trainer, whose beaten corpse is also discovered in the house. And she has no idea where her best friend Harper, who was with her earlier in the evening, could be.