A Child Lost

February 3, 2020
Set in 1936, Cox’s enjoyable fifth Henrietta and Inspector Howard novel (after 2019’s A Veil Removed) opens with Henrietta agreeing to help Gunther, a custodian at Chicago’s Mundelein College, find the mother of five-year-old Anna Klinkhammer, who recently arrived with him from Germany. Anna’s mother, a boarder at Gunther’s mother’s German boarding house, abandoned the girl before coming to the U.S. The search takes Henrietta and her husband, former police inspector Clive Howard, to a psychiatric hospital, where they discover Anna’s mother has died. When Anna mistakenly ends up in the same hospital ward as her mother, Henrietta decides to do some sleuthing on her own and realizes that someone is targeting the patients. Meanwhile, Clive works to prove a clairvoyant a fraud, and Henrietta tries to persuade a young woman not to shoot her abusive father. Each straightforward story line ends neatly and with little fanfare. The book’s strength lies in its vivid descriptive prose and historical accuracy. Those seeking suspense should look elsewhere.