Woman, Missing Sherryl Clark

Sherryl Clark is an author with a keen eye for a fascinating central female character, and Lou Alcott is one out of the box. A Melbourne based Private Investigator with a prominent organised crime figure for a grandfather, she's a disillusioned ex-cop with a major attitude when it comes to domestic violence perpetrators.

Starting out as a PI in a job facilitated by her grandfather, she finds herself in a small office with a boss who is impressively competent and a full time tech-expert who is very good at what he does. Assigned a couple of cases up front, one of them is a security check on the home of a young woman, Melinda, fleeing a violent ex-partner from NSW.  Her home seems pretty secure, and there's no sign that her ex-partner has left Sydney, yet she vanishes. Which probably engendered the only slightly bum note in the book - Alcott responds like she's lost a dear friend, which never did quite make sense. Minor quibble though. The other is a woman who has disappeared right from the start. Her husband is trying to convince everyone she simply up and left her two young children, her parents so not convinced that they have hired the firm Alcott is working for to find out the truth. 

Meanwhile Alcott's beloved grandfather is battling a dangerous adversary who kills his long-term friend and employee, blows up cars, and by connection, is threatening Alcott as well. All while she's trying very hard to find both missing women - both of which disappearances just don't make sense.

The investigations lead Alcott and her colleagues into the murky and odd world of online dating, as well as down some very deserted backroads. It's bad enough that her grandfather's life is being threatened, and she's caught up in that, but the two cases she's chasing also have the potential to become very dangerous indeed. It feels, at times, like Alcott's time is up even before she gets started.

Touching on some very real and major issues in today's society, this is a topical and elegantly balanced foray into domestic violence, the perils of online dating, and the dangers that women face. It's also exploring a little bit about a woman with a complicated personal backstory and some things she's trying to work through for herself. Not least of all her not-relationship with her high up cop father, her love for her grandfather and her dislike of what he does, and the way she's pretty much on her own. All of that is balanced against the way that Alcott and her grandfather negotiate their differences, and the respect and connection that she now finds she's garnering with her colleagues. 

An interesting character, and an interesting debut - full of threat and daring doing's, with some topical issue exploration, it will be fascinating to see where the author takes her next.