Criminal, by Karin Slaughter (Delacorte Press; $27.00)

1975:  What happened to Kitty, Lucy and Mary?  The three young women have disappeared, and Jane Delray, a fellow hooker, wants the police to find out. Soon Jane herself is dead, allegedly a suicide. No one seems to care about any of the missing girls. Not only were they in the life, they were also drug addicts, and their families had given them up long before.

But Atlanta Police Department detectives Amanda Wagner and her partner, Evelyn Mitchell, care. In the face of what today seems like unfathomable prejudice and outright hatred from their fellow cops, the two women doggedly pursue the case.  Despite being ordered to stop by those in a position to scuttle their careers, they don't give up until they've proved they're ever bit as competent as their male counterparts.

Present day:  Amanda Wagner is now a supervisor at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A 19-year-old student at Georgia Tech has gone missing. GBI agent Will Trent recognizes that the missing girl is a dead ringer for his mother, murdered by his father around the time of Will’s birth.  When Will learns that his father is out on parole, he knows that the monster has picked up where he left off. But this time, it’s personal, and Will—and Amanda—will do anything they can to save other girls.

Karin Slaughter always writes good thrillers, and this one is no exception.  The unexpected twists and turns far outweigh the instances where the reader beats the investigators in figuring things out.