‘The Lost Detective’ by Elspeth Latimer

Published by Story Machine,
25 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-91266552-5 (PB)

This is a story of two mysteries twenty one years apart, united by grief and loss. We first meet Alice twenty one years ago on the day when the unimaginable happens; her baby Felix goes missing from a garden whilst she is visiting friends. 

The story shoots forward then to twenty one years later and we learn that Felix was never found and Alice is now running a holiday park. It’s here that she meets Dan, a former detective whose world has collapsed after suffering his own tragic loss. Recognising the trauma of grief in someone else, she reaches out to him to try and find out what happened to Felix. 

However, Dan is a mess. He’s lost someone who was his world. He’s no longer in a job he loved and used to be good at. He sometimes wonders if he’s losing his mind. On top of this, one of the holiday park guests has disappeared and a body has been found near the holiday park.  Dan can’t resist the chance to try and solve this mystery which puts both his sanity and the relationships with his ex-colleagues at risk. 

For me the story comes alive in the dialogue between Dan and Cassie, his friend and ex colleague. Through this, we start to understand all that Dan has lost, all he can offer and all he still stands to lose. 

I read an interview with Elspeth Latimer who says she has always been intrigued with the hinterlands of East Anglia and has set the book in the Brecks region, bringing it evocatively to life. Told mostly from Dan’s viewpoint but occasionally from the viewpoint of Jay, the daughter of the only witness when Felix went missing, we learn what happened both twenty one years ago and the present day. 

It’s a crime story for sure, but it’s also a novel about grief, betrayal, the damage done when secrets are kept, endurance and ultimately hope.
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Reviewer: Julie Luscombe

Elspeth Latimer is originally from Scotland, where she worked as an architect, before her love of reading prompted a career change. She has a Prose Fiction MA along with a PhD on crime series, from the University of East Anglia, where she is now associate tutor in crime writing. Elspeth has always been passionate about the genre and the ways it reflects who we are. The Lost Detective is Elspeth Latimer’s debut crime novel, published September 2025. Elspeth lives in the Brecks, at the heart of East Anglia, and the subtle beauty of this landscape, together with the realities of contemporary rural life, are the inspiration behind her novel.