Lead Review (Memorial Park)

• Book: Memorial Park
• Location: Fordingbridge
• Author: Louisa Scarr

Review Author: tripfiction

Memorial Park by Louisa Scarr, police procedural set in FORDINGBRIDGE, Hampshire.

Memorial Park is the second book in a series of police procedurals focussing on police dog handler, PC Lucy Halliday, together with her service dogs Iggy and Moss. Lucy is a former detective with Hampshire police, who has taken a demotion while she adjusts to life as a widow. She sees her more junior role as a police dog handler as a better fit for her and has just taken on a new dog. Moss is trained to recover bodies, whereas Iggy will chase down the baddies.

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When a toddler, Rosie Logan, goes missing in Memorial Park, sniffer dog Moss is called into action with his handler, Lucy, to try to track her down. Lucy’s friend and senior officer, DI Jack Ellis, is shaken by the case because it brings back memories of his childhood friend, who also went missing and was never found. It turns out that Rosie’s family are hiding secrets and the author writes a fiendishly complex plot in such a way as to keep up suspense and interest. Scarr also balances the intense emotions that her characters experience, while keeping an element of doubt about their integrity – nobody is above suspicion!

The settings for Memorial Park include a fictionalised location, and the focus in this book is less on the wild New Forest and more on the small town of Fordingbridge in Hampshire. The locations are important to the story in the general sense, but a visitor wouldn’t recognise the principle venues because they are made up. Nevertheless, they broadly fit the rural character of the area where the child disappeared, in contrast with the nearby city.

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