Like This, For Ever: Lacey Flint Series (Book 3) by Sharon Bolton

ISBN-13: 978-0552166379
Publisher: Corgi
Publication Date: 7 November 2013
Format: Paperback, 512 pgs
Source: Personal Library

Like This, For Ever is the third installment of the Lacey Flint series, featuring DC Lacey Flint and DI Mark Josebury. In the previous two installments, readers follow their harrowing journey of tracking down notorious murderers. We see a vulnerable (dark?) side of Lacey in the first installment,  Now You See Me, and till now I'd not got over her past history. But then, that's fine since I like reading a character who's flawed and show us his/her imperfect side as it reminds us we are all human beings, even superheroes. 

In this installment it revolves around a killer who's set to murder young boys in South London. Four boys dead in two months, and another one still missing. The latest victims are ten-year-old twins, Jason and Joshua Barlow. None appeared to be sexually abused or tortured. The cause of death was mostly extensive blood loss following the severing of the carotid artery.

Alongside the story is an eleven-year-old boy Barney, who seems to have an incredible power of observation and memory. He plays a huge part in this story (in fact I think he's the star of this story); apparently he has huge interest of the missing boys cases and he even set up a page on Facebook, hoping it'd would draw people's attention and share whatever information they can get. But that's only a small part of it, his main issue is finding his mother who had left him when he was four. My heart goes out to him after reading that he uses his allowances to place ads on newspapers around London, hoping that his mother would read it and find him one day.

Not forgetting our heroine, Lacey's goal is to join The Sapphire Units which handle crimes involving sexual violence, but the previous assignment affected her so much. Plus, she wasn't really over with the first Ripper case and then, there is Mark Josebury, who seems to have the capability of confusing her state of mind, that is. Lacey isn't involved in the investigation,  but somehow or rather she is pulled into it when someone texted her about the missing boy.

However, that's not really the climatic part as Barney and his mates took the investigation into their own hands. Foolish or not, Barney is still one of the bravest boy I've read in a while, not to mention that he's also the second youngest amongst his mates. Although Lacey and Mark seem to be the external parties of this investigation, I still read with interest about the progress of the investigations and the suspense had me speculating who the killer is (there are several scenarios that got you into thinking), and on top of it we read about Lacey's vulnerability and her doubts about her feelings towards Mark as well as her career as a cop.

That said, I still enjoyed this installment although Lacey nor Mark is directly involved in the case. Speaking of Mark, I liked it that this installment shows a gentler and more delicate part of him. I think the relationship between him and Lacey will take a leap if she gives him (and herself) a chance.

The ending has somewhat threw me off the edge, as I still couldn't believe the identity of the killer. He is simply... oh well, I better not say it as this will be a spoiler. And once again, author Sharon Bolton has crafted another nail biting thriller and I look forward to reading her next installment soon.