Publisher Description
Cold-case detective Raquel Laing faces new threats and long-buried secrets in this gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.
SFPD Homicide Inspector Raquel Laing had what might politely be termed a “difficult childhood,” until she was taken in by a loving family at the age of nine. She still lives with her adoptive sister, Dee, an online investigator for organizations all over the world.
Trouble arrives with an all-too-common case for Inspector Laing: the homicide of a drug dealer in a deserted corner of San Francisco. But the everyday rapidly spirals into complications—just as a simple search into the family’s ancestry is throwing Dee into her own world of turmoil.
Raquel’s case blows up far too close to home, thanks in part to the illicit shortcuts she took in the investigation, and while her unique skills are too valuable for the SFPD to suspend her entirely, she is removed from Homicide and put onto the Cold Case Unit.
On the one hand, Cold Case lets her work with her friend and mentor, Al Hawkin. On the other, it leaves her free to look at some disturbing facts about her past—and at the devastating news that Dee has uncovered in her own search for the truth.
Cold cases heat up, the distant past intrudes, and two sisters begin to suspect that they are tied together in ways they never imagined—ways that threaten attention from a powerful and vicious international cartel.
Because the truth is, those who are gone . . . have never truly left.
Thrilling Reads Review
Those Who Are Gone is the second Raquel Laing novel from Laurie R. King, following Back to the Garden. I haven’t read the first book, but I never felt lost. King gives you enough context to follow Raquel’s investigation while making her complicated history with her sister, Dee, the heart of this story.
Raquel—known as Rock—is a San Francisco homicide inspector. Dee, her older sister, is an agoraphobic online security expert. They live together, work together at times, and have long believed they understood the basics of their family history: Raquel was adopted, while Dee was their parents’ biological daughter. Then Dee takes an ancestry test and discovers she was adopted, too. The news shakes her, just as Raquel’s latest homicide investigation begins to uncover troubling connections to their past.
King moves between time periods as the case unfolds. I needed a little time to get my bearings, but by about a third of the way through, the shifts felt natural. The investigation and the sisters’ search for answers gradually draw closer together, giving the mystery a personal weight beyond the question of who committed the murders.
The opening is measured, so readers looking for immediate action should know that King spends time establishing Raquel and Dee’s relationship. For me, that patience paid off. Their closeness, their differences, and the secrets neither knew they were carrying made the later developments more compelling. I also enjoyed seeing Al Hawkin, a character from King’s Kate Martinelli books, become part of Raquel’s world.
When I interviewed Laurie R. King, she explained that Back to the Garden left much of Raquel’s backstory unexplored. Those Who Are Gone brings that history forward. Even without reading the first book, I could feel how much more there was to learn about Rock—and King made me want to keep following her.
My verdict: Those Who Are Gone is a layered police procedural with a strong emotional center. If you enjoy Laurie R. King books for their carefully developed characters and mysteries rooted in the past, this one is well worth your time.
Laurie R. King Interview
