For a private investigator on the trail of a missing girl, every second counts in a gripping thriller by New York Times bestselling author T.R. Ragan.
On her first day of kindergarten, five-year-old Tinsley disappeared without a trace…
Five agonizing years later, her divorced mother, Dani Callahan, is a private investigator. She and Quinn Sullivan, a promising young assistant determined to prove herself, are devoted to helping others find missing loved ones. And for Dani, finding Tinsley is still a never-ending obsession.
Their newest case is Ali Cross, a teenager who vanished off a Sacramento street while walking home. A troubled boy’s eyewitness testimony to Ali’s abduction provides their only clues. And as their search for Ali gets underway, new information about Tinsley’s disappearance begins to surface too.
As their investigations lead down two twisting paths, disturbing secrets are revealed and new victims find themselves in mortal danger. Time is running out, and the hunt is only getting grimmer.
Count to Three is very much your standard crime thriller, and if you enjoy those kind of books, you’ll probably enjoy this one too. The story, whilst somewhat basic, remained entertaining, intriguing and engaging throughout. The chapters are relatively short, each of them focusing on a different character’s perspective. We experience how the protagonists, the abducted child and the antagonist all view the current situation they find themselves in. This was a refreshing change of pace from the usual method of focusing on one character throughout. I also noticed that this story can be quite dialogue-heavy, sometimes making it more akin to a script than a book, which is not necessarily a bad thing depending on your tastes. The characters for the most part are thoughtful and fleshed out, each presenting clear motives for their actions. There are also a few heart-to-hearts between them which proved to be some of the more uplifting moments of the book. In contrast of this, the more disturbing aspects of this story appear towards the end, and they are honestly just not very nice at all. I don’t think of myself as a squeamish person, but there were certain moments that succeeded in making my skin crawl.
There are some aspects of this story that I didn’t quite believe or thought could be improved upon in some ways. Without giving too much away, in this book there is a twelve year old witness of a crime. Let’s just say this boy is way more articulate than I was when I was twelve. If I’m not mistaken it’s also mentioned in this book that this kid is less socially developed than his peers, which makes me wonder how intelligent those peers must be. I also found the protagonists to treat the kid as somewhat of a third PI rather than an actual child. They invite him to question relatives, and even allow him to participate in a stakeout. I didn’t find these parts to be wholly believable, but what do I know? I’m a student, not a PI. Maybe that’s how they do it. I also believed that the antagonist could have been developed a little bit more. We are told briefly about his backstory, which is another disturbing aspect of this book, but I think it could’ve been explored a bit further to fully explain his actions, rather than a bad thing happened and now they’re a bad person. However, these criticisms do not really distract from the overarching story unless you let them. At its core, Count to Three is a fast paced page-turner that’ll keep you searching for answers throughout.
“It was still, after all this time, impossible to make sense of what had happened. Dani’s world had truly been turned upside down, her hopes and dreams broken, tossed away, destroyed.”
“They both had their own inner pain to deal with, but having each other made the world a brighter, better place.”
“And she was glad for it because feeling angry was so much better than feeling pain.”
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