Two brothers. Two kids. Lots of connections. When a little boy and a little girl are found in the woods next to a dead body and a brutally injured man, they are not sure what to think. The only witness, the boy, won’t speak.

This book was a real rollercoaster, and the twist at the end made it all the more interesting. I love this series because the author has a way of turning suspense in ways that I least expect. While the story is definitely sadder due to the child aspect, it was a definite nail biter. Character development was phenomenal.

Narration was spot on.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
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"Oh, what a tangled web we weave."
I think I can honestly say that this is the first series of crime novels that I've followed through with - mainly because I would read the second one so long after the first that I'd forgotten all the details. Thanks to the wonder of audiobooks, I've been able to work my way through this series in a more reasonable time frame and I'm enjoying getting to know more about these characters with each book.

Now, in book 3, the crime involves another murder, with two suspects and two young children of unknown identity. I don't think it would be a spoiler to mention that there is a pedophile involved, so this may not be suitable for some readers.
Untangling the identities of the children and the suspects makes for riveting listening and so I also managed to do quite a bit of ironing :)
I was happy to see that the narration was by Amy Deuchler, the same narrator as book 2. She does a good job with both male and female voices and spoke at a good pace.

I enjoyed the twisty nature of this novel and the ending was satisfying. It was a pleasure to reunite with the crime team of Marty Keal and Jean Whitley, plus Marty's fiance, Hope, whose insights into child psychiatry are fascinating. We also find Jean's daughter Bethany getting involved again, this time through her involvement with her boyfriend Dylan.

Book 4 next... ( )

STOLEN will keep you up at night either trying to stay awake to reach the end of the book, or lying awake wondering what will happen next. The boy Tristan will capture your heart and you will fall in love with Marty, a burly cop with a heart of gold. This book has more twists and turns than you can count and you never know what’s around the corner. Whidden has a real talent for developing characters you want to get to know better. I will definitely be reading more of this author’s works.
~ Linda Thompson, Host of TheAuthorsShow.com ( )

What an awesome read! This was my first book by this author and I was blown away. It was a great thriller/mystery with twist and turns that fully kept my attention that I didn’t want to put it down. The characters were fully developed and so interesting. The story line was so true to life and I certainly shed a few tears due to the nature of the plot.

The story is a mystery about hunters who find a man dead, another person wounded and two children traumatized in a cabin. The story goes through the twist and turns of Detective Marty Keal and his partner Detective Jean Whitley trying to find out what actually happened. The story flows smoothly between different characters. This is certainly a must read if you like mysteries. If author Dawn Kopman Whidden’s books are all this great, I’ll be sure to read them all! ( )

What is stolen? Children, innocence, and identities. At the opening, we have a cabin in the woods and a man who has been fatally shot; another man who is shot and transported to the hospital; and two children. One child is a little girl who is fairly quickly identified and returned to her parents after months with a pedophile. The other is a young boy with secrets because he either can’t or won’t talk. He does have vocal cords as he ran through the woods hollering something rather unintelligible. He continues to be a runner when they take him to the hospital and he runs smack dab into Detective Marty Keal. He’s also a biter; just ask Marty. Dr. Hope Rubin, child psychiatrist, gets pulled back into this book of the series to work with the child while Marty and Detective Jean Moran try to put the pieces together of who is who, and find the shooter who is still missing. When the shooter reappears, he’s holding hostages and has some rather odd demands.

Stolen is the third in the series (known as Marty Keal series per Goodreads). It follows A Child is Torn and Faceless. All three books have focused on disturbing issues of children in trouble. They have all been provocative reads. The first two give us Detectives Marty Keal, Jean Whitley, Joe Moran, and Dr. Hope Rubin. Detective Joe Moran has been effectively written out of the series this time. Each book could be read as a standalone, but if you like to watch the character development from one to the next, you’d probably want to read them in order. One thing: The child develops a closeness to Marty and Hope and they take him into their home on a temporary basis. I didn’t think social services would allow that and so it was a bit unrealistic. I rated Stolen at 4 out of 5. ( )