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Lost Girls (Paperback)

by Andrew Pyper (Author) "There is nothing more overrated in the practice of criminal law than the truth ..." (more)
3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 480 pages
  • Publisher: Pan Books; New edition edition (9 Mar 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330390406
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330390408
  • Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 52,633 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bartholomew Crane's first murder trial ought to be an easy win for the young, arrogant Toronto lawyer. The bodies of two missing teenagers--the Lost Girls--have never been found, and there's slight forensic evidence to tie the chief suspect, a high school English teacher, to their disappearance. Dispatched to the Canadian north woods to defend Thomas Tripp against a murder charge, Crane packs his omnipresent flask of cocaine and begins preparing to demolish the Crown's flimsy, highly circumstantial case. Crane doesn't care whether Tripp is guilty; his only job is to get him off. But Crane's client won't co-operate in his own defence, and the citizens of the small, depressed town are clamouring for his conviction.

Within days, Crane's waking and sleeping hours are haunted by odd occurrences: the disturbing apparitions of a madwoman who drowned in the same mist-shrouded lake where Tripp is assumed to have disposed of his victims; the incessant ringing of a telephone down the empty hallway of his motel; the bizarre tale of a 100-year-old murder told by an elderly woman whose own daughter was claimed by the legendary Lady of Lake St. Christopher. In short order, the facts and surmises of the case become intertwined with Crane's visions and nightmares, and what had seemed like a straightforward, easily defended case based on wrongful accusation becomes a morality play in which the protagonist himself must answer for events that occurred 20 years ago.

A brooding, moody novel as dark as its setting, Lost Girls is less a courtroom drama than a ghost story hinged on a thin plot. Crane is not a particularly likable or sympathetic character, and Pyper's attempts at creating atmosphere favour the "It was a dark and stormy night" school of genre writing. But fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Saul will find this a chilly enough read to occupy just that kind of evening. --Jane Adams, Amazon.com

Product Description
Criminal defence lawyer Bartholomew Crane is despatched to a small lakeside town in Northern Ontario with a brief to defend a schoolteacher accused of murdering two teenaged girls. He assumes it will be an open-and-shut case and that he'll be back carousing in Toronto before the month is out, for the girls' bodies have never been found and the Crown's evidence against the teacher is scant. But the deeper Barth digs into the teacher's - and the town's - past, the more disturbed and distressed he becomes. Peculiar visions haunt his imagination; telephones ring ceaselessly in the dead of night; the gargoyles above his hotel's entrance seem to be watching him; and sometimes, out of the furthest corner of his eye - if he looks hard enough - he can see two identically dressed girls following wherever he goes ...Is his mind playing tricks on him? Or has Barth been dragged into the town's spiralling collective hysteria? 'Extremely compelling' Sunday Telegraph 'Remarkable and compelling' The Times 'A remarkably fine debut novel' Time Out 'Hugely impressive and utterly compelling' Independent 'A truly scary ghost story' Maxim 'This is one scary book' Independent on Sunday

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There is nothing more overrated in the practice of criminal law than the truth. Read the first page
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars a book which defies pigeon-holeing, 9 Sep 2004
By tony mac (Dunfermline) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Lost Girls (Paperback)
I remember starting this book shortly after finishing that linguistic abomination 'The Da Vinci Code' and feeling stark relief that I was at least reading something by a guy with a genuine prose talent!

As a first novel this is interesting stuff because it wilfully refuses to be drawn into a specific category. Court-room drama, psychological thriller, ghost story, character study - its all of these.

In trying to be so many things the book does suffer a bit from falling between stools, and at well over 400 pages its much too long for its relatively simple story and small cast of characters.

Its flawed, amoral, drug addicted central character Barth Crane is a fascinating creation and I do hope the author resurrects him in a follow up.

All in all an excellent first book and a talent to watch.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Psychological thriller with a ghostly twist, 18 April 2009
Ashley and Krystal were best friends and one day never returned home. Both teenagers, they disappear in a small town by a lake in Ontario, Canada. One of their school teachers, Thomas Tripp, is accused of murdering them after some evidence turns up. However, no bodies are found. Defence lawyer Bartholomew Crane is summoned for the court case and reaches the small town from Toronto, assuming this to be quite a straight forward case, an easy-win. However, his client (Tripp) is very uncooperative and seemingly unstable and this, combined with an old ghost story surrounding the lake, a story known in fact by all the locals, and with his own personal problems to deal with, make him realise that the case is much more complicated than what it appeared in the beginning. The impact of what Crane learns as the days go by trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together is quite strong. He starts having nightmares and being haunted by visions.
And the question keeps lingering: where are the girls? Why haven't their bodies turned up yet?

In my opinion this book is well written but lacks in connection with character development, meaning that a part from Crane, who is the leading figure and is accurately described in all of his feelings and circumstances, the other characters fade into the background too lightly despite bearing relevance to the story and deserving more space. Suspense is quite high in parts, but in the long run, and because it is almost always connected with Crane, it becomes a bit... trite. While it is true that I have never liked `ghost stories' much, this is not exactly one of them, or not entirely. This fact alone may have made me depreciate the book a bit, but I still feel that a certain je-ne-se-quoi should have been added or changed to make the story more compelling. As it stands, it is a bit too implausible (and that includes its end).
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Starts good, loses it, gets good, then falls apart!, 18 Jul 2001
By A Customer
The introduction to this book was fantastic. Well written and made you want to read more. The bookstarted off OK, got a bit better, then went very slow, and got quite frustrating. Then suddenly there's a slight twist to the story and the book got more intriguing. Then sadly it fell apart at the end. The impression I was left with, was that the Author wanted to get it finished in a hurry.

For a first novel, it's good, worth reading. For those that like nice tidy, easy to read books, give it a miss.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars starts so well and falls apart
this book has it all, atmosphere, an anti hero, strange characters and enough moody suspense to fill a dozen hitchcock films. Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful spooky thriller
This novel is amazing. I picked it up because I'm always on the lookout for a good spooky ghost story and I certainly wasn't disappointed. Far from it. Read more
Published on 9 May 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for readers of John Connolly or Denis Lehane
This is quite simply a superb novel!!! The opening scene alone is worth the money...it spooked the hell out of me. Read more
Published on 28 April 2001

2.0 out of 5 stars Nice try Mr Pyper........
It may be me but I didn't find this book in the least bit scary, tense or for that matter interesting. Read more
Published on 23 April 2001 by n.burns@blueyonder.co.uk

4.0 out of 5 stars A good old-fashioned ghost story
I first heard about this book when I saw a billboard advertising it at the tube station which billed it as 'The Shining' meets 'The Sixth Sense'. Read more
Published on 4 April 2001

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow to start and rather predictable
I was quite looking foward to reading this novel being the author's first one. However, although the book is quite atmospheric particularly when describing the supernatural... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2000

3.0 out of 5 stars Not quite as good as the hype...
Certainly a page-turner, but the supernatural elements are unconvincing, and the twist towards the end was predictable from the first few pages.
Published on 5 Jul 2000

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