3.5 stars

A missing child investigation is told from multiple perspectives, featuring a police detective & an investigative journalist. Many of the characters in this story know each other & their lives intersect in interesting ways. Well written & great character development.

[What I liked:]

•Heloise, an investigative journalist, gets involved in a missing child case. Her doctor is the parent of the missing child, Lukas; her god-daughter goes to the same school as Lukas; her friend, Erik Schäfer, is the lead police detective on the case. I loved all the layers of overlapping acquaintance & connection. It was really well done & added to the atmosphere of paranoia.

•As bad things keep happening & loyalties are questioned, there is a building sense of dread & fear. The narrative tension is expertly ratcheted up throughout the story.

•Heloise’s personal life is in crisis as the book opens, & she is faced with a series of difficult decisions to make & emotions to process. Her character development arc is really well written.

•The very, very last scene of the book is so good! I don’t want to spoil it, but something dramatic & dreadful is subtly hinted at up til the end, & the scene closes without explicit confirmation but you *know* what’s about to happen. It was brilliant!


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•The motivation for the crime against the missing child was never explained! That was really frustrating to me.

•There is an uncomfortable amount of casual racism, xenophobia, fat phobia, & ableism thrown about by the MCs. That didn’t endear me towards them.

CW: substance abuse, child abuse, war crimes, murder, miscarriage, infertility, infidelity, domestic violence, ableism, abuse of an intellectually disabled adult, suicide, police brutality, racism, fat phobia

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

I have to admit, it took me several tries starting this audiobook to really get into it because the audio quality was terrible, but the story made up for it.

I enjoyed this one, I found out that it was the second in a series but I didn’t feel like I missed anything by reading it before the first. I did like the characters enough that I added the first one to my TBR list! I listened to the audio version and thought the narration was great.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

This book was multi-layered and kept me guessing. I did not see that plot twist coming and was pleasantly surprised by it. This was an interesting and gripping read.

Wow this was crazy. I low key hated every character except Finn and I was feeling so bad for him. People are horrible.
Then we have people roasting their own colleagues grandkid.
A man who wants to force a woman into marrying him, a women with no feelings (or so she thinks), a mother who can't stop drinking, and cops going after immigrants who really didn't do anything wrong. (I am team those guys).
I think part of my hatred was just a cultural thing. I kept seeing the characters as far right wing Americans and obviously they weren't.

Anyway I loved it because it was so very messy -and the problems solved themselves.

Read this if you like books where people get what's coming to them.

Oh and the narrator. She was perfect. I absolutely loved her [performance and will listen to anything she narrates. I think some books need a good narrator and she nailed it.

This was so confusing -- I gave up without really even getting into it because I felt like I couldn't keep track of what was happening.

This is the second book featuring journalist Heloise Kaldan, and I highly recommended you read The Corpse Flower first. This installment features the disappearance of a ten year old boy who has taken a photo of a barn that had a feature that his mind has processed as a human face and Louise believes she knows what the child was referring to. When the boy’s bloodied jacket is found, DNA point to a soldier suffering from PTSD. But when the soldier is killed, execution style, the police are left with little to go on. Hancock’s stories are complex and multilayered and well worth your time

The second novel in the Kaldan and Schafer series, 10-year old Lukas goes missing and it is up to Erik Schafer and the police to find him. The boy has a peculiar obsession with pareidolia—a phenomenon that makes him see faces in random things. Heloise Kaldan thinks she remembers seeing a picture that Lukas continually post on Instagram somewhere else, but where? And will it help find Lukas?
When seemingly random people who have nothing to do with Lukas turn up dead (and their DNA is somehow on the boy's missing jacket) will Schafer be able to figure this mystery out in time?

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this audio verision.*

Thank you Net Galley for an audio ARC of The Collector by Anne Mette Hancock. This is a new to me author and I loved this airhead writing style! The narrator did a great job too. Many twists and turns in this one!

This is an excellent follow up book to The Corpse Flower. I actually like this book better than the first. But I don't recommend reading it if you haven't read the first book. You really need that backstory to understand why Heloise is the way she is. She is a strong female protagonist, who is stubborn and jaded. I enjoyed the continuation of her story and seeing Detective Schafer again.
What starts as a story about a possible kidnapping, turns into a politically motivated crime, then a wild goose chase. There is a lot of pieces as play within the mystery, and following the clues gets a bit messy. I did enjoy the way things played out and did not see the end coming at all. It was a solid read.
As an audiobook, I felt the narrator did a great job portraying each character. Though I wish she had been a little more dramatic at times, to help build suspense, she did a good job. I'll be happy to listen to her again if she narrates the next book.

I absolutely LOVED this book! It is the 2nd book in a series but it isn’t necessary to read book 1. This book can be read as a stand alone. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I’ll just say that a little boy goes missing at the beginning of the book and as I read, I had no idea who took him. I was in utter shock at the end when I learned what happened. And I was even more in shock as I read the last few pages. I hope there will be a number 3 in the series. I’m about to read the first book now and will watch for a 3rd.

The Collector by Anne Mette Hancock
was another enjoyable read and a great second installment to this series. I loved Corpse Flower and couldn’t wait to listen to this. The audiobook was narrated by Laura Jennings and she did a great job. The mystery and suspense was well done and I liked the character development. I really enjoy the way the author writes and highly recommend listening to this one.
Thanks Dreamscape Media via NetGalley.