Review: "The Taken Ones" by Jess Lourey

The Taken Ones by Jess Lourey
Published September 2023 via Thomas & Mercer
★★★

Three girls go into the woods—but only one comes out. Decades later, a woman is discovered—minutes too late—buried alive. The cases shouldn't be connected...but it's clear immediately that they are. On the case is Van Reed, a cold case detective with a lot to prove, and things will get messy before they start to make sense...

I find cold cases fascinating—both real-life and fictional—so I'm fond of them in mysteries. This story felt like it had a layer too many, though: Van has a childhood trauma backstory (practically de rigeur in mystery series these days), and there's that thing she did as an adult, and there's the way she was run out of her previous department. Oh, and she's psychic.

Paranormal twists never really do it for me (they take me right out of the story), and I probably wouldn't have read this if I'd known there was the psychic angle. As it is, I think I'll pass on further books in the series; the multiple tragic backstories would have been more than enough, but the psychic thing is just a bridge too far for me. Add to that my dislike of chapters by Evil Villains Who Are Evil, to say nothing of Evil Villains Who Are Evil And Also Clearly Deranged, and this is just not the series for me.