The Secret Child (DI Amy Winter #2) by Caroline Mitchell.

This is the second book in the DI Amy Winter series but it can be read as a stand-alone. It is set around London and features child abduction. Can DI Amy Winter and her team bring back 4 year old Ellen quickly to the safety of her home? Will Amy drill down to the bottom of this mystery? Get ready for another British crime thriller from Caroline Mitchell.

I liked the research that Caroline has done to build the plot of her latest novel. I liked how she used the tale of the Little Albert Experiment from 1920 and the use of drugs like Methylphenidate to bring a sinister side to her story.

I liked once again how Caroline captured the cultures within the police service, the interview techniques they use and the procedures involved complying with PACE.

I found it lovely that Amy’s pet, Dotty the Pug was included as part of her home life. However, I did not find Amy’s private life as interesting as in the first book, Truth and Lies. Once again there was dialogue between Amy and her birth mother Lillian Grimes but this became a frustrating drag and I thought just why does Amy, or for that matter, Caroline bother?

Oh and onto pet hate time. Frustratingly this novel went back and forth between 1984 and the present time. Caroline even mentioned boring Brexit to give it an up to date feel but then chapter after chapter she floated back to 1984. Then you are in the situation of knowing more about the background to this story than DI Amy Winter and her team investigation the child abduction.

With Amy and her mother Lillian droning on and on about their past, I started to loose empathy with Amy. Nothing exciting really happened in her private life and I feel her character has become a little tired.

I have read 4 other books from Caroline Mitchell, including Truth and Lies which was the first DI Amy Winter novel. Each of those books for me was a 5 star OUTSTANDING read. However, although I found The Secret Child to be a GOOD read, I did not enjoy it as much as the others, so it gets a highly respectable 4 stars from me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Amazon Publishing UK for giving me a copy of this book on the understanding that I provide an honest review.