Yorkshire is nicknamed “God’s Own Country”, despite the fact that it has been the stamping ground for the “Ripper” and the “Moors Murderers”. It is a county of contrasts, open moorland and high farms on the one hand, and dense, once heavily industrial, urban communities, such as Bradford, Leeds and Halifax. In the latter, Adrian Brown, aged eighteen, is working for the local paper as a driver and general office junior. It is April 1994 and Adrian has two secrets, he is homosexual but not yet ‘out’, and Adrian Brown isn’t his real name. On three occasions in1986 a young girl had vanished from local streets and clues to them being taken by a man, posing in one case as a Lollipop Man. Then an eight year old boy, Matthew Spivey, disappeared in similar circumstances, only to be suddenly returned. To preserve his anonymity, his parents changed his name. Adrian/Matthew has largely got over the trauma, although his parents haven’t. There have been no other incidences since then, but now a young girl has disappeared and evidence suggests that “The Lollipop Man” has returned. Circumstances now contrive to drag Adrian into the investigation and, along with his pal Gav, TV journalist Sheila, and Reporter Jeanette, he finds himself retracing his own story and entering into dangerous territory.
This is an interesting story, with a lot of characters and some very contrived incidents. The characters are well differentiated and mostly fairly believable, although the actions of the police seem a bit erratic (I can’t get a handle on DCI Struthers). It moves quite quickly, perhaps a bit repetitious, and the final scenes are logical in the context. There are references to the “Hardy Boys”, the “Famous Five” and “Scooby-Doo”, which I think are to ‘remind’ us that Adrian and Gav are young, but which kept making me think, unfairly, that this story is unsophisticated. The plot is good, with a couple of twists, but no real surprises. I’m a bit torn but reckon 3.5 is fair, which will round to 4, which is a bit generous.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley (my first one!) and loved it. This book was a bit of a slow burn, but definitely paid off in the end.

The Lollipop Man takes place in West Yorkshire where multiple young girls have been abducted. Only one survivor, the main character, Adrian. Eight years later, it seems these crimes are starting to take place again. This story was gripping and had twist after twist!

1994, Adrian is an intern with a local newspaper where no one knows he was kidnapped as a child by the Lollipop Man, who also took three young girls who were never found. When another girl is kidnapped in the same way as the previous abductions, Adrian and another journalist try to dig deeper and find out what is going on. I enjoyed this. I would read more from this author. It wasn't blatantly obvious what was going to happen, which I always appreciate. 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

This was a really fascinating book with loads of twists and turns and dead ends before we got to the solution of the mystery. So much so that I was almost dizzy by the end and had no idea how it was going to resolve.

I really enjoyed the setting of West Yorkshire in the early 1990s, given I am a Yorkshire girl myself and I think it provides the perfect backdrop for this kind of murder story, given that this area was the haunt of the Yorkshire Ripper. People now also associate the Calder Valley with the TV Show, Happy Valley, and the moors which rise up to the west of the area with the Moors Murders, so the area has a dark cloud cast over it, if only in people’s minds. It’s not really all bleak, I promise, but it helps for the purposes of this book, which needs a dark cast.

The characters of Adrian and Sheila, who are both haunted by their roles in the disappearance of three young girls eight years before, work brilliantly to carry this story of regret, redemption and resolution. It also touches on the subject of family secrets and being true to yourself. Adrian is battling with letting his parents know who he is, but they also haven’t been honest with him. Sheila is also keeping secrets from her friends but she can’t sit on them if she wants to repair the mistakes of the past.

I thoroughly enjoyed this rollercoaster of a thriller. However, I have to say that the motivations of one of the antagonists at the denouement of the novel were disappointingly unresolved and glossed over, which I found disappointing in terms of payoff for the amount of time invested in the book. It made the ending feel a bit rushed and inadequate, as though the author were less invested in the mystery than the arc of the two main protagonists. This may well be the case, but the reader deserves a proper ending to the crime in case they don’t feel the same.

Complex crime story that will keep you up to find out who did it .. Good characterisations with a victim at its center. Alongside all that, it's a coming out story, a (not always convincing) side issue abt journalists getting the story, and perhaps kayboshing police investigating .. and a gay bar where all is not as it seems .. murky back-story that is explained in big rush at end.. but the villains are really bad, and hurdles to investigation of who kidnaps and kills young girls is convincing ... except I'm not sure in the end what motivates the aider and abetter of the crimes .. but THAT'S OK, it still is really well done. Recommended...

It’s April 1994 and a young girl has been reported missing, the MO is strangely similar to what happened in this Leeds town eight years prior when three girls were also kidnapped and their bodies never found. Dubbed ‘The Lollipop Man’ in the 80s as the kidnapped was seen wearing a long white coat and carrying the lollipop. Locals become frightened that he is back and young Adrian, a young man now, finds himself at the heart of the investigation.

This was a solid 3 star mystery, the cover, the title and the blurb pulled me in however for me it fell short as there were far too many characters, many unnecessarily, and I kept getting especially confused between Sheila and Sylvia and which was which. This is just my opinion though and I’m sure others will be fine with it. I enjoyed the writing style, and as a first for me by Daniel Sellers I will be looking at his other work.

Many thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for my eARC in exchange for my honest review

The Lollipop Man by Daniel Sellers is such a gripping thriller with many twists and turns.
I was completely engrossed all the way through and in awe of the twists and turns which made it a very hard book to put down! Cleverly plotted and wonderfully written, this is a novel I thoroughly enjoyed.

It is 1994, and we are in West Yorkshire, in the district known as the Calder Valley. An old friend of mine called it Cleckhudderfax, a neat blend of three of its major towns. The main character is a young man known as Adrian Brown. I say 'known as' because he was christened Matthew Spivey. When he was 10, he was abducted by a serial killer later dubbed The Lollipop Man, who had already claimed three victims - little girls. Nothing was ever found of them except bloodstained clothes. But here's the strange thing. Adrian/Matthew was found and returned, unharmed, to his parents. It was then decided that he should change his name to allow him to grow up without constant attention from the media.

Now, Adrian is employed as a  trainee reporter-cum gofer with the local newspaper. An unusual lad, is Adrian. He is intelligent, but socially insecure. He is also gay, which was is not an easy road to travel in the landscape of the sometimes toxic masculinity of West Yorkshire in the 1990s. When, after a gap of ten years, another little girl disappears, Adrian is drawn into the messy periphery of the police investigation, along with Sheila Hargreaves, a TV journalist and presenter.

There are several characters on the periphery of this drama but their significance is not immediately obvious to the reader. We have Edna Worley, a middle aged busybody who is obsessed with appearing on local news or getting her name in the papers. When she is found dead on a canal towpath it seems clear that she has been murdered for something she knew. We also have the habitues of the district’s only gay pub, a collection of losers including a barman who doubles as a drag Queen. When one of the regulars, a petty crime sponger known as ‘Little Phil’ also turns up as a corpse in the canal, Adrian is forced to examine the integrity of the people he views as his friends.

It’s fair to say that Adrian isn’t the most inspiring of central characters. Midway through the novel, he is forced to examine how he has screwed up:

"He did a gloomy stock take. He lied to his parents about his sexuality and about his social life. He'd found a dead body and lied about that, this time to the authorities.He'd tampered with evidence. He'd drawn his best friend into a conspiracy to conceal his earlier misdemeanor. Then, with that same friend, he'd broken into a pensioner's house and stolen his murdered sister's private papers. Since then, he'd also managed to fall out with his friend and with his parents and had shouted at and run away from a well-loved television presenter."

There is a tragi-comic episode where Adrian is discovered ‘making hay’ with his boyfriend. Bursting unannounced into the bedroom is a relation who promptly tells her husband, who storms round to Adrian’s parents house. His timing couldn’t be worse, as Adrian’s mum had been childminding a neighbours’ little girl, who appears to have snatched by The Lollipop Man while she was playing in the back garden. Therefore, the crowded front room of the terraced house is full of coppers and social workers. Not exactly the ideal place, one might think, for Adrian’s sexual preferences to be made public. Adrian survives relatively unscathed, and goes on, with the help of a mate, to put two and two together and find the correct answer, lurking in a rather gothick and isolated former tannery on the edge of the moors.

This is certainly not a police procedural, as the coppers seem to make one blunder after another, but it is an entertaining thriller taking us back to the days of mobile phones the size of bricks, and a northern England still under the shadow of the misdeeds of Myra Hindley and Peter Sutcliffe. The book’s title refers to the vague recognition of several witnesses that the abductor was dressed in a white coat and a military style peaked cap, similar to the garb worn by people escorting children across busy roads at going home time. The Lollipop Man will be published by Allison and Busby on 20th Februar

1⭐️ Thank you to NetGalley and Allison & Busby for an advanced copy of The Lollipop Man.

In the 1980s a man was abducting children and they named him the lollipop man. He abducted four children but one was able to escape. Flash forward to 1994 and another young child is abducted with a lot of the same similarities to the lollipop man abductions. Has he really resurfaced after all this time?

This book had so much potential but was way too confusing. Too many characters were introduced and it was hard to keep their storylines straight. There was also a lot of repetition throughout the story. There was a lot of build up to a pretty lackluster reveal. I was not a fan at all.

Firstly I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book, it was brilliant. It drew me in from the first page and there were so many twists and turns it kept me guessing until the end. I look forward to reading more from this author.

This is the first book I have read by this author and, on the back of it, it won't be the last! Set back in the mid 90s - how refreshing - we follow 18 year old Adrian who is an intern at a local newspaper. His main job is to ferry the reporter around, driving him as he lost his license. One day, they are called to the scene of a kidnap. A young girl has been snatched. They soon learn that this abduction matches that of an old cold case. One that Adrian is personally connected to. The Lollipop man abducted several children, including 10 year old Adrian, who managed to escape. Adrian has mixed memories of that day but has tried hard to put to in the past. Changing his name helped. But his past is about to become his present...
As well as Adrian we also follow media darling Sheila Hargreaves who has her own demons surrounding the Lollipop man case. She needs him brought to justice for her own atonement.
I said how refreshing to have a book set in the 90s. Before all the technology we have got used to. Phone boxes play their parts herein for example, early mobiles being huge. We also have ceefax (loved that). But along with that, we also have the prejudices that go along with that time, attitudes towards women, homophobia, and the AIDS crisis, all of which are handled very well indeed, and kept within context.
In Adrian and Sheila, the author has created two very rich characters. I took to the both of them right from the off. Other characters were just as well drawn and all played their parts very well. There were rather a lot of them and I can't help feeling that maybe whittling them down, combining roles might have helped the book to flow better.
The story was great, with all the necessary twists and turns, secrets and lies, dysfunctional behaviour, obfuscation, etc that you would expect from a book of this genre. I especially loved Adrian's interactions with his family and best friend. I also took to DCI Struthers, eventually, as he took a bit of getting used to!
And the ending, when it came, was perfect... Apart from me having to say goodbye to a few of the characters that I had bonded with. Maybe, hopefully, we will see them again in the future... In the meantime, I'm off to stuff my tbr with his back catalogue. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

First in a new series from this author takes the reader down to Yorkshire this time and focuses on the disappearance of young girls from 1994 which is occurring again 8 years later. I liked how one of the children who had escaped back then, is now trying to find out who the abductor was/is as they were never caught. Lots of twists and turns until we find out what has been going on and with a great ending too. Look forward to reading more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC to review.

A story by a Yorkshire writer about murders in West Yorkshire. How could I not read it!

Daniel Sellers is a new author for me. I'll definitely read more of his fiction.

The Lollipop Man is back. A series of disappearances 8 years before was never solved and the girls who were snatched were never found. 10 year old Matthew Spivey was snatched but returned. Then the trail went cold and the town breathed a sigh of relief.

But in 1994 the disappearances begin again and they are frighteningly similar to the previous ones. Matthew (now Adrian Brown) is working at a local paper. He remembers little of his terrifying ordeal but he's determined to stop The Lollipop Man this time.

Along with a beloved tv presenter and his friends Adrian will stop at nothing including Police warnings to stop the monster before he takes more little girls.

Daniel Sellers has produced a fast paced, thrilling story that kept me hooked to the end. Some parts of the finale did stretch the imagination a touch but the twists are all surprising and will keep you guessing. The characters are all interesting and Adrian was very likeable.

I may not have read Mr Sellers work before but he's on the radar now.

Highly recommended.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Allison & Busby for the advance review copy.

Thank you Netgalley & Alloson & Busby for an eARC ♥️

The story is about Adrian, a young journalist who was kidnapped as a child by a serial predator known as the Lollipop Man. The fact that Adrian escaped is a miracle, but the trauma of that experience has stayed with him.
When another child goes missing in the same town, Adrian is forced to confront his past all over again. I can only imagine how hard it must be for him to relive those memories. The police are stumped, and the media is having a field day, which only adds to Adrian's anxiety.
As Adrian delves deeper into the investigation, he's joined by Sheila, a journalist who covered the original case. Together, they start to unravel some disturbing secrets. I won't lie, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, wondering what would happen next.
What really got to me was the way the author explored the aftermath of trauma. Adrian's story is heartbreaking, and his struggles to come to terms with his past are so relatable.
This book is a gripping thriller, but it's also a thoughtful exploration of trauma and recovery.
I'm so impressed with Daniel Sellers’ writing that I'll definitely be reading more of his books. His ability to craft a compelling story that's both thrilling and thought-provoking has won me over.

My thanks to Allison & Busby and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Lollipop Man’ written by Daniel Sellers in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Matthew Spivey aged ten was the only one of The Lollipop Man’s victims to be released. He’s now eighteen, has changed his name to Adrian Brown and has a junior position at the local newspaper when Sarah Bartlett is abducted. Everyone is saying that it’s The Lollipop Man again but he’s been silent for over seven years so has he made a comeback or has someone else taken over?

‘The Lollipop Man’ is an atmospheric thriller that keeps the reader guessing although initially it’s slow to start and there are so many characters it’s easy to get confused. I’ve enjoyed reading about Adrian, and his relationship with his family and friends has been nicely described. I also liked journalist Sheila Hargreaves, the anchor of ‘Yorkshire Tonight’, who’s offered DCI Malcolm Struthers her assistance in catching The Lollipop Man.

The Lollipop Man was my first Daniel Sellers book, but it won't be my last!

Although I've read and listened to quite a few books already this year, I've struggled to find something that truly caught my attention. A book that had me whispering the age-old adage, "just one more chapter" and that I struggled to put down.

The Lollipop Man was just that book.

I found myself immersed in it and instead of it being a struggle to read, I felt like it was a team effort between me and the book. (Or the author if you prefer!)

I did find the ending a little rushed, and unnecessarily complicated, but that didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book overall.

Well this kept me guessing all the way through, and although I suspected the killer (as did the main characters), there was plenty in this that I did not expect, not least where the bodies were! I'm trying hard not to put any spoilers in so sorry if this all feels a bit cryptic but the premise is that young girls are being snatched and not returned, so not a huge leap to know there are bodies.

The novel is set in the 1990's so a bit of a nostalgic feel to it. All the characters in this are well rounded and believable and it was easy to become invested in this story. Another page turner of a well written book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Very much recommend!

This book had me hooked immediately and drawn in to the mystery right away. It was a suspenseful read overall.

The Lollipop Man lived in a Yorkshire village where he kidnapped three young girls in 1986. Ten-year-old Matthew escaped. Now, eight years later, a child goes missing, has the Lollipop Man returned? Matthew changed his name to Adrian Brown after his escape from the Lollipop Man. and works as admin at the local newspaper. He is determined to stop the Lollipop Man this time.

Adrian has a strained relationship with his parents even though he still lives at hoe. There was just the right amount of intrigue and mystery to keep you invested. The pace is fast and it's been descriptively written. I liked Adrian and his best friend Gav. There were quite lot of characters to keep track of.

Published 20th February 2026

I would like to thank #NetGalley #AllisonandBusby and the author #DanielSellers for my ARC of #TheLollipopMan in exchange for an honest review.

Adrian was the one who got away. Now. though, it seems the Lollipop Man is back and Adrian along with his pal Gav and Sheila, who reported on the original abductions, is looking for answers. This is a slow burn and it's twisty. Sellers makes good use of his 90s timeframe (how different life was without cell phones). No spoilers from me. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Good storytelling makes for a good read.