Review: Little Comfort by Edwin Hill

Author: Edwin Hill
Publisher: Kensington
Date of publication: August 2018

Harvard librarian Hester Thursby knows that even in the digital age, people still need help finding things. Using her research skills, Hester runs a side business tracking down the lost. Usually, she’s hired to find long-ago prom dates or to reunite adopted children and birth parents. Her new case is finding the handsome and charismatic Sam Blaine.

Sam has no desire to be found. As a teenager, he fled his small New Hampshire town with his friend, Gabe, after a haunting incident. For a dozen years, Sam and Gabe have traveled the country, reinventing themselves as they move from one mark to another. Sam has learned how trusting wealthy people can be—especially the lonely ones—as he expertly manipulates his way into their lives and homes. In Wendy Richards, the beautiful, fabulously rich daughter of one of Boston’s most influential families, he’s found the perfect way to infiltrate the milieu in which he knows he belongs—a world of Brooks Brothers suits, Nantucket summers, and effortless glamour.

As Hester’s investigation closes in on their brutal truth, the bond between Sam and Gabe is tested and Hester unknowingly jeopardizes her own safety. While Gabe has pinned all his desperate hopes of a normal life on Hester, Sam wants her out of the way for good. And Gabe has always done what Sam asks...

I'm always on the hunt for good mysteries that have strong female detectives. I had high hopes for Little Comfort and was pleasantly surprised with the book.  It's the first book in a series featuring Hester Thursby who is a Harvard librarian who uses old fashioned research to find lost people.  As the story opens, she is on leave to help take care of her boyfriend's niece.  She decides to take a missing person case that seems pretty straight forward.

I enjoyed this one.  I really liked Hester's character.  I loved her relationship with her boyfriend as well as his niece.  She was pretty cute.  Hester is short in stature, but really tough.  Many people mistake her for a teenager.  She's kind of kick ass in a librarian sort of way.  I liked the way her mind worked and enjoyed watching her solve the case. She is definitely a character I want to read about in the future.

 The mystery was good.  The story is told through Hester perspective as well as Sam's and Gabe's. Sam and Gabe are the missing men.  They have spent their life grifting.  Even though we know who and where they are, the real mystery is why they ended up being grifters.  There are a couple of twists and their story is pretty disturbing.  I don't want to give anything away.  I do recommend this one and I look forward to the next book in the series.