Final Approach by Rachel Brady is the first book in the new “Emily Locke” mystery series. Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, October 2009
Four years ago Emily Locke’s life was shattered when her infant daughter and husband were lost in an inexplicable accident. She has nearly rebuilt her fragile mental health when Richard Cole, a disgraced former police detective now working as a PI, resurfaces. He wants help he says only she can provide—reconnaissance at a Texas skydiving establishment over a thousand miles away. Emily knows better than to work with him again, but can’t refuse when she learns it’s about a missing boy. She identifies too greatly with the new missing child case.
At Gulf Coast Skydiving, similarities between this new case and Emily’s troubled past make it increasingly difficult for her to stay objective. Soon she’s convinced that she is somehow connected to whoever took little Casey Lyons. Someone at the quiet, rural airstrip knows what happened to the boy . . . and to Emily’s own daughter.
To find Casey before it’s too late, Emily will have to make sense of the menacing parallels between his case and her daughter’s.
In this debut book, Emily continues to deal with her loss and when asked to assist in a kidnapping she agrees and flies to Houston. Snippets of her past is given to the reader and we become involved in sifting through the clues. Once I opened the pages of this book, I couldn’t put it down. And the ending…bought tears to my eyes that she got her one wish. This was a great read and I hope there are more adventures with Emily and especially her BFF Jeannie. My rating: 4.5 stars
*new-to-me author