Lost

This is an absolute dazzler. Robotham is one of the most exciting new voices in crime fiction. LOST has it all--a superb plot, engaging characters, pitch-perfect writing, some memorable bon mots and a magnificent sense of setting. This is noir, London style. We're on the docks and in the sewers, and dodging the city's many underground rivers. The subterranean scenes are brilliantly executed and they manage to be intense without being too claustrophobic. The characters who guide Ruiz through this dark, watery, rat-infested London are straight out of Dickens. Robotham lives in Australia, but he knows his London like a native and he has a perfect feel for the Russian underworld there. I don't want to inject any spoilers, but he has a scene at a dacha outside Moscow which is also authentic to the point of being painful. I finished this book and purchased Robotham's next a few moments later. Do not miss this writer or this book. He understands the genre and his prose is exquisite. This is the real deal.

The title applies so well in different respects. The main character has "lost" part of his memory. He has also "lost" the time he should have had with his children. Others have "lost" the desire to rectify what may be a wrong. And, in many ways, there is the "lost" opportunity that the characters and all of us face. Like other reviewers, I found the main character in the book to be flawed, interesting and totally believable. If you like characters such as Jane Tennison and Inspector Morse, you will like Det. Ruiz. I read the author's previous book, "Suspect" and liked the continuation of the characters from that book to this. You may want to read that book as well, however this book stands on its own quite well. If you like reading P.D. James or other crime authors who delve into the psychology of characters, this is a good book for you. The author is also adept at writing excellent action sequences within a cogently written, well-paced plot. Totally worth your time!

Both this book, Lost, and a previous book, Suspect, are written in first person. The main difference between the central characters are their values, viewpoints and outlooks on life. I liked Suspect better than Lost - but only marginally. In Lost, Robotham seems to be a more mature, focused writer, finally revealing the full strength of the promise he showed in his debut novel. This time around, a detective (Inspector Ruiz) suffers from amnesia, not sure how he survived a near drowning and with only brief traces of memories at the edge of his consciousness. The truth emerges in bits and pieces. If you like mysteries which have strong psychological components, you'll like this one. It has both action and suspense and characters that draw you in. However, I think you'll get the most out of it if you read Suspect first. The two books really do deserve to be read as a set. Each CAN stand on its own but why miss out on the chance to get even more from each book? They truly complement one another.

After delivering a pulsating debut thriller with The Suspect and introducing us to a couple of characters in Dr Joseph O'Loughlin and DI Vincent Ruiz , who are as opposite to one another as you would want to meet, Michael Robotham has followed up with Lost another riveting thriller. Lost carries on with O'Loughlin and Ruiz again featuring very prominently. But Robotham has performed a sneaky little switch. In The Suspect, the story was told from the first person perspective of Joe O'Loughlin, a clinical psychologist who had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. The first person perspective is again used in Lost, but this time, the story is being told by Vincent Ruiz and Ruiz is a much more abrasive, in your face character with a very dry sense of humour, as evidenced by the following observation: "My stepfather died at a bus stop in Bradford in October 1995. He had a stroke on his way to see a heart specialist. See what happens when buses don't run on time?" The story opens as Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz is being pulled out of the Thames. He is in a pretty bad way thanks in large part to the bullet that had passed through his leg. He wakes from surgery to find that he has no memory of the incident or of the week leading up to it. With the help of friend and clinical psychologist Dr Joseph O'Loughlin, Ruiz can piece together enough details to work out that he was working on the disappearance of 8 year old Mickey Carlyle and he was on the Thames to make a kidnapping payoff. The problem with this scenario is that the Mickey Carlyle case was closed 3 years ago and a man is already in prison for the young girl's murder. From what he can gather he has been working the case alone, independent of the police department, a fact that has made him extremely unpopular with his superiors. The moment Ruiz is capable of walking he checks himself out of the hospital, anxious to begin retracing his own steps in a bid to recall the circumstances leading up to his accident. Thanks to a couple of memory flashes, Ruiz is almost certain that Mickey is still alive and being held by her captors. But Chief Superintendent Campbell Smith is having none of it, ordering Ruiz to drop the case of face suspension from the force. As Ruiz retraces his steps he tends to replay some old and significant memories of his life, some of them painful, bringing together a more complete awareness of himself. In effect, losing his memory has helped him find himself. Meanwhile, his hunt for answers takes him: into the sewers of London deep below the city streets; into the Thames; onto the trail of a dangerous mobster, and; into the life of a pedophile. Set at a reasonably moderate pace, Lost is shrouded in mystery as the majority of the storyline focuses on the frustration of Ruiz as he struggles with memories that lie just out of reach. Bit by bit he retraces his steps with the excitement provided by unsuccessful attempts made on his life. Robotham writes wit