Review: Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna

Author: Louisa Luna
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date:  January 2018

When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied.

With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads, and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.

Two Girls Down starts with the disappearance of two girls from a strip mall.  The family hires Alice Vega to come in and find them.  She has had a lot of success finding Bail Bond skips as well as missing people in general.  Teaming up with PI Max Caplan, they fight against the local cops to find the girls in time. I went into this book not knowing much about it and I that made it more enjoyable.

I ended up the mystery.  It had a lot of twists and dead end, so I was kept guessing until the end  I did NOT call that ending.   As for the characters, I liked them well enough to want to read the next book featuring Vega and Cap, The Janes.  They were engaging and interesting.  I did like how they figured out how to work together, even though they didn't trust each other at first.   My biggest complaint is that I didn't feel like I got to know Vega that well.  I almost felt like there was a story that came before this one that maybe went into her background a bit more.  But I checked and there isn't one. SHe was kick ass, tough and really smart.  I just wanted more background. Hopefully, we will get more answers int he next book.  Cap was a much more well fleshed out character.  I loved his relationship with his daughter.  If you are looking for a great and surprising mystery, I highly recommend this one.