?Review: Hide In Place by Emilya Naymark

Posted on March 8, 2021 by Nadene @ Totally Addicted to Reading in Reviews / 22 Comments

I had high expectations for this book. I jumped at the chance to read it after reading the synopsis. The story possessed enough to keep me entertained, but unfortunately it did not blow me away.

Hide in Place, book one in the Laney Bird series, introduced Laney Bird, a retired detective. She left the force after an undercover case she had been working went sideways and her husband abandoned her. She also wanted to spend more time with her son Alfie. Her son had serious behavioural issues, which had a negative impact on his ability to socialise with his peers. Then one day Alfie goes missing. The police, however, are not keen on looking for him. After all, this was not his first time missing. Laney, however, refused to accept this, and took it upon herself to investigate the situation on her own. In conducting her investigation, she discovered that oneโ€™s past has a funny way of returning to bite you on the butt.

The author narrated the story through Laney and Alfieโ€™sโ€™ POVs. This gave the reader the chance to experience Laneyโ€™s frantic attempts to locate her son. In addition, the reader got the chance to see Alfieโ€™s actions throughout his experience with his kidnapper. The author portrayed the fears of both characters realistically.

Laneyโ€™s actions were typical of what would expect from a frantic mother. Alfie proved to be a brave soul. His ability to think on his feet proved to be his saving grace.

Laney loves her son, but it would appear she doesnโ€™t understand him, placing a strain on how they relate to each other.

The majority of the story focused on Laneyโ€™s time as an undercover cop as it relates to the case, which played a role in hero resignation from the police force. She learned there was more to the case than she first realized, all of which were not good.

The author filled the kidnapping aspect of the story with tension, which had me on the edge of my seat. However, it did not possess the twists or surprises one would expect to find in a mystery.

Although not my favourite, Hide in Place proved entertaining enough for me to keep reading. Fans of police procedurals may want to add this this their shelves.ย 

 

[bctt tweet=”Enjoy police procedurals then Hide In Place by Emilya Naymark would make a nice addition to your library.” username=”TtlyAdd2Reading”]

ย 

Story Evaluation
Plot
4
Characters
4
World Building
3
Writing Style
3.5
Pacing
3
Cover
3.5
Enjoyment
3
Ending
4
Overall: One StarOne StarOne StarHalf a Star

 


EXCERPT

Chapter 1
Laney Birdโ€™s son vanished the night she drove a busload of high school seniors to see Wicked on Broadway. He left home before she did, loping down their driveway toward marching band practice, his saxophone case swinging in his hand.

โ€œStew in the Crock-Pot!โ€ she yelled at his retreating back. โ€œIโ€™ll be home by eleven!โ€

He waved without turning around, a shimmy of raised fingers in the raw February wind.

The bus smelled like bologna sandwiches, fruity body sprays, and old soda and sounded like a monkey house. But she was used to it. And she needed the extra money.

Once the students erupted into the glittery Manhattan night, she parked and texted him but heard nothing back. This concerned her, though not overwhelmingly so. She figured heโ€™d stayed late for practice or left his phone in his backpack on vibrate. She tried to nap. Listened to the radio. Played a game on her phone.

As icy rain turned to snow, the students clambered back on the bus, collapsing against green seats and smudged windows, and she carted them homeward through tortuous, storm-soured traffic toward upstate New York and their waiting families.

She wasnโ€™t home by eleven.

Laney walked into her empty, dark house a few minutes past midnight and dumped her keys onto the key dish by the front door. Alfieโ€™s saxophone did not trip her as it usually did, but she barely noticed, the long day hitting her hard.

After wriggling out of her bra (through her sleeves, blessed relief) and toeing off her shoes, she tipped the lid from the Crock-Pot and paused, unease needling her.

The beef and potatoes had gone cold, congealed. Untouched. She dropped her bra to a chair and walked over to Alfieโ€™s room. His door was open and, when she flipped the light switch, his bed neat, empty.

With shaking fingers, she called his phone, then again, and again. Again. The line rang through to voicemail every time. The GPS Phone Tracker showed him a block from school at five pm, then nothing. He had either disabled the app or powered off his phone, both of which she had forbidden him to ever do.
Between the frantic phone calls, she glanced in every room and closet, climbed into the drafty attic, then into the dank basement, calling his name as if he were a toddler playing hide-and-seek and not a mercurial thirteen-year-old.

He was still not home by one am, when Laney rang and woke the few parents whose sons bothered with Alfie. They answered their phones with voices groggy or scared, turning quickly to irritation. He wasnโ€™t with any of them. But sheโ€™d known that before she called and made the calls anyway out of some dim, crazed hope. He never visited other kids, never texted, wasnโ€™t, as far as she knew, active on any social media.

At one thirty am she screeched into the Sylvan PDโ€™s parking lot, knocking over a garbage can as she slammed on the brakes. Sylvan, a sedate hamlet in Rockland County, population less than nine thousand, slumbered under a cloud-swept sky, and the station house in the middle of the night on a Tuesday was quiet.

Laney burst into the building, then hesitated as the doors clanged shut behind her. Ed Boswell was the desk officer on duty, and if he was not exactly the last person she wanted to see, he was right up there in the top five candidates.

โ€œLaney,โ€ said Ed, turning his eyes from the screen, where, no doubt, heโ€™d been watching the latest episode of CSI. Heโ€™d told Laney once it was his favorite show, and the midnight shift in Sylvan was so slow he usually spent at least half of it bingeing on some TV series or other.

Itโ€™s not that she thought he was a bad police officer. He was all right, calm and steady, with a slow way of looking at every problem even when the problem required immediate, ten-alarm action. Laney had been a cop herself before her personal life imploded. In her deplorably short career with the NYPD, Laney had risen to detective and worked three years as an undercover, first in the Bronx, then in Brighton Beach.

As Ed Boswell clicked something on his computer, tsked in irritation, clicked again, then looked at her, she wished, not for the first time, she could call her ex-partner. But he didnโ€™t work in Sylvan. Ed did. Ed, who knew nothing of her past, nothing of the shield sheโ€™d earned by doing countless buy-and-busts, of her skills, her extensive knowledge of police procedures. Ed, who saw only what everyone else in Sylvan saw when they looked at herโ€”a bus-driving single mom of an odd boyโ€”and treated her problems with her child accordingly.

โ€œItโ€™s Alfie,โ€ she said, her voice coming shrill and taut from her throat, hurting her. โ€œHeโ€™s not home. Hasnโ€™t come home.โ€

โ€œAgain?โ€ asked Ed.

His eyes settled on her (with pity? condescension?), and she realized sheโ€™d run out of the house in her slippers, her coat still hanging on its hook in the hall and her bra on a kitchen chair.

Ed glanced at the window, where a wet sleet had started to slap against the glass. The storm had traveled north and was just beginning to hit their town.

โ€œDid you check the high school?โ€ he asked, just as Laney knew he would, because heโ€™d been on desk duty the last time Alfie decided to disappear.

โ€œThe school is locked,โ€ Laney said, thinking this should have been obvious, schools were like fortresses nowadays, hermetically sealed after hours. But she was not the cop, she reminded herself. Not anymore.

She said, โ€œHeโ€™s not answering phone calls or texts. Heโ€™s disabled the phone tracker. I called three families who have sons heโ€™s friends withโ€โ€”to describe them as friends was a stretch, and she knew Ed knew this and her face coloredโ€”โ€œand heโ€™s with none of them. I left a message for his band teacher. Alfie was scheduled for band practice this afternoon. Prior to that he came home from school as usual at two fifteen, had a snackโ€โ€”she paused, swallowed; that was the last time sheโ€™d spoken with himโ€”โ€œa PBJ sandwich, did his homework, then left for practice at four fifty. He was supposed to be home before seven.โ€

She closed her eyes, running through anything else she might have done, anything else she should say, but all she could envision was Alfieโ€™s back in his maroon parka as he strode down the slippery driveway, saxophone case in hand, blond hair escaping from under his black knit cap. She hadnโ€™t even hugged him, just waved as he stepped past her for the three-block walk to the high school.

Ed sighed and typed something. โ€œIโ€™m sure heโ€™s fine, Laney. Heโ€™s done this before. Weโ€™ll have a patrol car out to the school.โ€

But it wasnโ€™t the same, Laney wanted to scream. That last time, a month ago, she and Alfie had had an argumentโ€”a real, honest-to-God shouting and crying fest. She had (had she really?) slapped him and ransacked his room for the drugs she was sure heโ€™d hidden there. His blown-out pupils, his clammy skin, his overly cautious movements, as if he didnโ€™t trust his own limbs, terrified her, reminded her of the lost souls sheโ€™d had to lock up in the past. He cried, bawled, his face red and swollen, a child, even though he was thirteen and would be fourteen soon, in two more months. He denied everything, and by morning she had to admit she might have overreactedโ€”the years buying drugs on the street as an undercover had skewed her vision, darkened her interpretations of the most normal behaviors. He might have simply been fighting off a cold. Mightnโ€™t he?

By morning it was too late to make amends. Alfie had left and didnโ€™t come home until the next day.

Afterward, after the missing-child reports had been filed and alerts issued to local police, after hours of searching, Alfie simply walked up the driveway and into their living room. Heโ€™d spent the night in the school theaterโ€™s backstage, among the dress forms and discarded curtains. In the morning heโ€™d washed in the gym locker room, ate in the cafeteria, and walked to the frozen lake a mile away, where he spent a few hours sliding along the thick ice until he grew cold and hungry, at which point he came home.

Laney wanted to ground him, punish him, take away screen privileges for running away, because didnโ€™t he know what he meant to her, didnโ€™t he know he was all the family she had in the world? But the sight of him, tall, pale, thin, worried about her reaction, destroyed any disciplinarian instincts, and she clung to him wordlessly. She then cooked them a big pasta dinner.

And after she put away the dishes and Tupperwared the leftovers, she installed the GPS Phone Tracker on his phone.

โ€œLook,โ€ Ed said, โ€œIโ€™m sending the patrol car out now. Weโ€™ll start at the school. How about you go home and get warm. Weโ€™ll call you as soon as we find him. Whatโ€™s the band teacherโ€™s name? Is that Mr. Andersen?โ€

So placid. So sure. Laney ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. Itโ€™s possible she was overreacting again. But what did Ed know of her and Alfie? Certainly she hadnโ€™t told himโ€”or anybodyโ€”the reason Alfie skedaddled the last time, of that god-awful argument. Most depressingly, nobody who knew her had asked why he might have disappeared then, not even Ed Boswell, who had taken the report and should have.

Alfie was strange, a loner, prone to both inappropriate outbursts and intense shyness, and never mind his near expulsion following the fall talent show. Consequently, any strange behavior from him was not surprising. Certainly not to Ed, whose son was also a Boy Scout in Alfieโ€™s troop. Thatโ€™s how Laney and Ed knew each other, through their children, even though Edโ€™s son ignored Alfie at best and sometimes, when he thought no parents were in hearing distance, ridiculed him with the sharp, callous cleverness of the smart and popular.

โ€œSo,โ€ she said, trying to keep her voice neutral, โ€œshould I tell you what he was wearing?โ€

โ€œOh.โ€ Ed peered at the paperwork in front of him. โ€œYes, letโ€™s do that. What was he wearing?โ€

She pictured Alfie, her stomach clenching with fear. Where was he? Things had improved lately. A lot.

Heโ€™d been sweet, even-tempered, talkative with her, had even been mentioning a friend.

โ€œBlue-and-gray-striped sweater, horizontal stripes. Dark-blue jeansโ€โ€”skinny cut, Christmas present and already floods on him two months laterโ€”โ€œwhite socks, black sneakers, maroon parka, black watch cap.

He had his sax with him when he left.โ€

Ed sat back and sighed. โ€œGot it. Heโ€™s fine, Laney, really. Itโ€™s Sylvan, not the inner city. Go home. Iโ€™ll call you as soon as we find him.โ€

She nodded, her eyes welling, then gestured to the hallway. โ€œGonna use the ladiesโ€™,โ€ she said, already walking toward the bathroom.

It wasnโ€™t so much that she minded crying in front of peopleโ€”she really didnโ€™t. Feelings were feelings and everyone had them. But being inside the station brought back her old ways. Cops didnโ€™t blubber, and if you were a female cop, you better keep yourself zipped shut or youโ€™d never hear the end of it. She splashed cold water on her face and dried off with a paper towel, kneading it into a tight, brown ball before shoving it into the metal bin.

A little of Edโ€™s sureness had penetrated her swooping panic, and she felt a touch easier now. He was right about one thingโ€” Sylvan was not the inner city. The nearly nonexistent crime rate and country setting were why she had moved here in the first place. Alfie was being his difficult self. That was all.

She walked out of the bathroom tired but composed, willing to let the situation take its course, if only until morning.

On her way out, she passed an office and would have kept walking except she heard Alfieโ€™s name. She stopped just behind the doorway, keeping out of sight.

โ€œThat kidโ€™s got problems,โ€ said a manโ€™s voice. โ€œListen, I had to come out five times last fall to the high school because of him. Five times! Whatโ€™s he even doing in a normal school? Shouldnโ€™t he be up in Pinelane?โ€

โ€œApparently not,โ€ another man answered. โ€œI know what you mean, though.โ€ He sighed. โ€œThat boy is overtime waiting to happen. And it doesnโ€™t make me happy to say it.โ€

โ€œWhat? You not happy about overtime?โ€ the first man said.

โ€œYou know what I mean. What if your kid was like that?โ€

โ€œNope, not me. Thatโ€™s why I ainโ€™t having kids. I got snipped.โ€

Laney looked up to see Ed coming toward her, his lips a line across his face. Without saying anything to her, he marched into the office and said, โ€œIโ€™m happy to hear you wonโ€™t be reproducing, Raguzzi. Now get the hell to work and shut the fuck up.โ€

She turned and ran out into the spewing snow, her slippers instantly soaked and her face burning with shame and guilt and worry.

***

Excerpt from Hide in Place by Emilya Naymark. Copyright 2021 by Emilya Naymark. Reproduced with permission from Emilya Naymark. All rights reserved.

About Emilya Naymark

Emilya Naymarkโ€™s short stories appear in Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY, and in the upcoming Harper Collins anthology A Stranger Comes to Town.ย  She has a degree in fine art, and her artworks have been published in numerous magazines and books, earning her a reputation as a creator of dark, psychological pieces.ย  When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of thrillers and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

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22 responses to “?Review: Hide In Place by Emilya Naymark

  1. There seems to be some good elements and I’m glad they balanced out the so-so ones so you could like the book even if it was missing a little something.

  2. I’m pretty sure I say this every time I pop by your blog, but I just love the little graphics that you use at the top of your reviews for the categories! ๐Ÿ™‚ Awesome review! The mother’s frantic actions definitely threw me a bit combined with her work as a detective. I wanted to shout at her for the decisions she was making, but I can’t say I blame her either. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Robin Loves Reading

    Itโ€™s good you were able to go ahead and read it even though it wasnโ€™t one of your favorites.