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Lost Girls: A Sherry Moore Novel    by George D. Shuman Amazon.com order for
Lost Girls
by George D. Shuman
Order:  USA  Can
Simon & Schuster, 2008 (2008)
Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

George D. Shuman's new Sherry Moore thriller is not for the faint of heart. He first dangles his blind psychic heroine from a headwall just below the 16,000-foot mark on a mountain rescue mission in Alaska's Denali National Park and then pits her against horrific criminals who brutalize and torture women kidnapped into sexual slavery in Haiti.

Sherry, who previously appeared in 18 Seconds and Last Breath, has the remarkable ability to share the last seconds of an individual's life by touching the corpse. Her neighbor and best friend, Admiral Garland Brigham, dispatches her to Denali, in an attempt to rescue the only daughter of the Washington state senator who was on the mountain before the storm hit. The climber's brother, U.S. Navy SEAL Captain Brian Metcalf, heads the mission and helps Sherry on the mountain.

The mission is a success - the mind of the climber (Sergio Mendoza) dangling from the mountainside held the location of three others as he died. But there was more in his tortured thoughts, extremely disturbing images of women - 'in the bowels of a castle in a jungle' being horribly abused. Sherry cannot forget them.

Next we meet two of these women - brave Polish National Police officer Aleksandra Goralski who was captured while investigating a corrupt chief customs commissioner; and rich and privileged seventeen-year-old Jill Bishop, taken while shopping in Santo Domingo, on a cruise with her family. We also read of the horrors they undergo. Aleksandra tries to help Jill.

Sherry's determination to do something about the terrible visions she has shared eventually leads her to Jamaica and then Haiti, in a mission shared with Jill's mother Carol. After a crescendo of violence and betrayal, the villains get their due - and Sherry meets Brian Metcalf once again. Though many of the details are very hard to read about (don't miss the Foreword which addresses worldwide Trafficking in Women and Children), Lost Girls is a gripping thriller and a recommended read.

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