Toys In The Dust: a gripping mystery thriller / N.M. Brown

She has escaped a killer, but for how long?

Two seven-year-old girls, Tina and Suzy, are playing in a dusty creek when a stranger appears and strikes up a conversation. He is sad that he doesn’t have a doll to play with like the girls do, so Suzy hurries home to fetch one. When she returns, Suzy discovers both Tina and the stranger have vanished.

A short while later, traffic officer Leighton Jones, who is fighting his own demons, is driving home from the scene of a near-fatal accident. When Leighton sees a young girl race out in front of his car and vanish into the countryside, he reports the sighting. Unfortunately, his superiors, who are increasingly concerned about Leighton’s mental health, doubt the child exists.

But after Tina’s mother confirms her daughter’s disappearance, Leighton risks his job by pursuing his own investigation of the case.

Meanwhile, in the Californian countryside, a child killer is relentlessly searching for the one who got away.

Leighton has his work cut out. But can he prove his sanity and find Tina before the stranger does?

Toys in the Dust is a gripping and fast-paced serial killer thriller, which will appeal to fans of authors like Damien Boyd, Keith Houghton, Mark Edwards and Angela Marsons. It is loosely connected to N.M. Brown's previous thrillers, also featuring Leight Jones, The Girl on the Bus and Carpenter Road, and can be read as part of a series or as an unmissable stand-alone.