The Finder, a former police detective called Talib, is hired by the British police authorities when they have difficult missing person cases that they want reviewed. In the process he has become a respected specialist in finding missing people.

In The Woman Who Laughed, the South Yorkshire Police bring in the Finder when an old missing person case and a more recent murder collide.

In the first months of 2020 there was a spate of murders of black sex workers in northern cities. One of them was Ella Bailey, last seen talking to a man in an alley in Sheffield’s city centre, and although no trace of her was ever found, the punter, Michael Godley, soon confessed to all three murders.

Five years later, as another sex worker is murdered in the same district, the bag Ella had been carrying with her when she went missing reappears, hanging on the door handles of a café. A local vagrant also claims to have seen Ella sitting on a bench in a churchyard near the site of the murder. The Finder is given the difficult task of finding out if there is any link. His search takes him back to the strange days of the pandemic, to talk to those who knew Ella best, such as her wayward girlfriend ‘Loz’, abusive boyfriend Caine Poynton-Smith and her respectable foster-parents still struggling to come to terms with Ella’s life choices and death.

Bit by bit, the Finder pieces together what happened to Ella by carefully interviewing those originally involved in her supposed murder. The plot unfolds at a smooth pace and although there is not much action it always holds interest. Mason carefully brings a diverse cast of characters vividly to life through their words and the backdrop of the more unsavoury parts of Sheffield is nicely evoked. We are also given brief glimpses into the Finder’s background and what happened to him

As with all good crime stories, there are the requisite twists and turns, and the ending produces some well-crafted surprises. The narration is in the form of a report by the Finder on what happened and initially seems a little flat, but as the book progresses it becomes more engaging, and the final pages fly along.

I really enjoyed this low key mystery and thoroughly recommend it.

What I love about The Finder Mysteries is the way they weave a classic novel throughout the investigation, and how they make you feel like you are sitting in front of Talib as he tells you his story. The Woman Who Laughed is gripping, with some unexpected segways and a definite one-sitting read.

The Finder mysteries are a sort of "no I inhale them" as they're page turner I can't put down.
This is the best in this series, the most emotionally charged and with a sorrowful undertones as the Finder face his past and the life of street sex-worker
I felt for him and the girls, was eager to know how thinks were, moved by the grief.
A book I loved and I had to end as fast as I could as I wanted to know
A great story I thoroughly enjoyed
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Simon Mason is onto a winner in his Finder series of which this is the third and best.

The format remains the same - The Finder is employed by a local police force to discover the whereabouts of a missing g person and he ranges far and wide to attempt to do so whilst finding parallels between the situation he’s investigating and some of the classic novels.

He is thorough, dedicated and relentless. He has the gift to make witnesses open up and really talk to him as well as giving the analytical powers of deduction to sift the clues and evidence.

This case is set in Sheffield which comes alive in the hands of Ann excellent writer and Mason paints a bleak but accurate picture of the Demi monde and the dangers of life as a sex worker.

There are no winners in this book but it’s a captivating read