Author: Jennifer Chase
Narrator: Lisa Rost-Welling
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: May 2019
Genre: Thriller
Buy the Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: He looked down at the little girl, sleeping peacefully, her arms wrapped around a teddy bear. He knew he was the only one who could save her. He could let her sleep forever.
An eight-year-old girl, Chelsea Compton, is missing in Pine Valley, California and for Detective Katie Scott it’s a cruel reminder of the friend who disappeared from summer camp twenty years ago. Unable to shake the memories, Katie vows she won’t rest until she discovers what happened to Chelsea.
But as Katie starts to investigate, the case reveals itself to be much bigger and more shocking than she feared. Hidden deep in the forest she unearths a makeshift cemetery: a row of graves, each with a brightly colored teddy bear.
Katie links the graves to a stack of missing-persons cases involving young girls—finding a pattern no one else has managed to see. Someone in Pine Valley has been taking the town’s daughters for years, and Katie is the only one who can stop them.
And then another little girl goes missing, snatched from the park near her home.
Katie’s still haunted by the friend she failed to protect, and she’ll do anything to stop the killer striking again—but can she find the little girl before it’s too late?
My Thoughts: Little Girls Sleeping is the first book in a series with fifteen published installments as of this review. The story follows Katie Scott, a police officer and Army veteran who returns to her hometown with her K9 partner, Cisco. Katie carries significant emotional trauma that is not fully explained, though I hope the series sheds more light on her past as it develops. Her uncle, the town sheriff, offers her an administrative position with the department while she decides what comes next.
Katie inadvertently discovers the graves of two little girls who disappeared several years earlier, their murders still unsolved. Determined to identify the person responsible for the abductions and killings, she makes the case a personal priority—even if pursuing it means stepping on the assigned detective’s toes.
I adore stories in which dogs and cats play prominent roles, and this book was no exception. I loved Cisco and hope he appears throughout the series.
Overall, the story was good, but I am still trying to understand what Katie endured in her youth, later as an adult, and while serving overseas. The book offers vague hints about her trauma without providing concrete answers, which can be frustrating for a reader like me who prefers loose threads to be tied up.
Even so, I enjoyed the story enough to continue the series and see what Katie and Cisco get into next.
My Final Verdict: Little Girls Sleeping is an engaging start to the Detective Katie Scott series, pairing a compelling mystery with a likable K9 partner in Cisco. Although Katie’s unresolved backstory left me wanting more clarity, the investigation held my interest and the characters have enough promise to bring me back for the next book.
Thank you to the publisher, Bookouture, who provided an advance reader copy of this book via NetGalley.
