Nikki Hunt is back again for the fourth instalment of the Nikki Hunt Series. When a woman’s bones are found in Rory’s construction site, Nikki is called. Rory knows the woman and questions are being asked. Did Rory do it? Nikki wants to prove his innocence but cannot get involved in the case.

Nikki’s case is a pregnant woman who has gone missing, she and her baby’s life is in danger due to pregnancy complications and it is a race against time to find her and the baby. It isn’t just another missing person case though, and when more pregnant women’s bones are unearthed at another site it seems they could be linked to the bones at Rory’s construction site.
I was wondering how the fourth book would pan out since Frost has been caught now, I was so glad that Stacy Green decided to continue with the series, there is so much more of Nikki Hunt to give.
I was hooked from the first few pages and read this book really quickly, I couldn’t get enough of it.
There were much-loved characters from the previous books and new ones too, which on the FBI side I got to know and like. I hope we see more of those in future books.
The investigation was brilliant; it was very true to life and brings up some important current crimes that people will have heard of.
I do think the Nikki Hunt books need to be made into a TV series, it would make for great viewing.
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The Girl in the Ground is the 4th Nikki Hunt Mystery and I couldn't read it fast enough. It is an edge of your seat crime thriller that captured my full attention in the first pages. Nikki is an FBI special agent working in her home town of Stillwater, Minnesota. The story opens with construction workers unearthing the skeleton of a girl in Stillwater. Nikki's boyfriend Rory Todd is working at the site and calls her when the bones are found. While Nikki knows instantly that the girl was murdered, she is shocked when Rory tells her that he knows who the girl is. The dead girl is his childhood girlfriend Becky, and he was the last person to see her alive before she went missing twenty four years earlier. Rory, of course, becomes a suspect and Nikki is told to step away from the investigation. Soon it becomes clear that Becky was pregnant and that Rory was the father of her baby. However, Nikki still believes that he is innocent and investigates that case anyway. When Nikki finds a potential link to two pregnant girls who were found murdered years before, she believes that she may solved the mystery of all of the murdered girls.

The character Rory seemed somewhat different from his appearance in earlier novels in the series. He is incredibly untrusting of the police despite that fact that his girlfriend is one of them. While it is normal to fear law enforcement when you are a suspect in a murder, he even began lying to Nikki over mundane matters. I think if I was a suspect, I would take some comfort from knowing that my girlfriend could help me. Rory acts differently.

The mystery concerning the pregnant girls being murdered was well thought out. The main missing woman is a surrogate for a wealthy couple who are unable to have kids. When she disappears they think that something sinister must have happened to her because she was not the type of person who would just disappear. Nikki is a close friend of the couple and decides to help them out and look for the girl. Her main investigation, though, is to figure out how Becky died and why. Nikki believes that the missing surrogate is connected to all of the other missing girls as all of them were pregnant. She has alot of cases to look into in order to solve the crimes.

This latest installment of the series was a fun read. 4 out of 5 stars. ( )

crime-fiction, psychological, thriller, PTSD,Minnesota, murder, FBI, suspense, triggers, true-horror, survivor's guilt, children-in-peril, death-investigation, series, law-enforcement, procedural, cold-case****

Nikki had to recuse herself from the case brought to her from a construction site because there was a connection to her current boyfriend (even more of a nightmare because his parents were minding her daughter while she worked). Lots of personal trauma, lots of horror in the backstory, and way too many triggers for me to enjoy reading. I have friends who will love it, but it's not for me (sorry).
I requested and received a digital ARC of this book from Bookouture via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you ( )