A bitter winter's morning is no time for a child to be out walking alone in woodland... the milkman spots her and phones the police. A girl is known to be missing in the area, but not, as it turns out, this LITTLE GIRL LOST. Detective Sergeant Lucy Black finds a silent, hypothermic eight-year-old in the snow and stays with her in the hospital. Somebody must know who she is.

Set in scenic Derry, now a co-operating town with echoes of a troubled past, the tale focuses on Lucy Black and her colleagues as an investigation gets under way. Settling down to phone schools, half of whose pupils are home because of snow, Lucy notices small high windows so that office workers won't be easy targets, leftover from the disturbances. Forensics tests reveal some interesting leads but the child still remains mute. The other missing girl, Kate, is sixteen. Kate's father has amassed wealth through shrewd property deals, and perhaps someone will come looking for a ransom. Street camera footage gives the first clue to the teen's abductor. Then an aggrieved member of the public adds a tip. Following it up however turns the situation from bad to worse.

Lucy has her own family difficulties; her father's wits are wandering, and she needs to arrange for someone to sit with him while she's absent. This makes her a sympathetic character, as if it wasn't enough that her superior officer likes touching women officers and thinks women are good for family liaison work and not CID. However, I disliked the way that she immediately complains about being taken off the case of the more prominent Kate.

Derry used to be famous for shirt making, but a trader says that today the garments are made in India and sold through local agents. Some people still resent the police and Lucy is warned that going to an interview alone could be dangerous. Northern Ireland may be enjoying blessed peace, but the echoes of the past imbue this third DS Black story with character. Maybe it's just the wintry setting, in a recession-struck town close to mountainous Donegal and the North Sea, but Brian McGilloway's police procedural tale seems gritty and bleak, where death is brutal and homelessness is hopelessness. Kate has left a trail of charms from her charm bracelet, the only sign that this LITTLE GIRL LOST is alive. Read this assured detective tale and follow her trail.