The Girl in Times Square

The Girl in Times Square, Paullina Simons

I love this book. I have probably read it 4 times over the last 10 years and every time I come back to it, I enjoy it again.  A good, extended, long, involved story is a special treat.

Lily Quinn is 24, an arts student, and almost broke living in New York. Life just seems to go on around Lily, big things happen to those around her, but not to her. She heads off to Hawaii to visit her parents, yet on her return finds out her flatmate and good friend Amy has gone missing.

Enter Detective Spencer O’Malley from the missing persons unit, in his mid 40s and battling his own demons. As O’Malley searches more into Amy’s life, what was really going on, and how Lily’s family were a part of it, it takes a long time to unravel what has happened.

At the same time, some big things finally start happening to Lily – one very good and one very bad.

This novel has enormous scope covering the vast complexity of extended family relations especially mothers and daughters, the life of immigrants to the USA after WWII, and the careful unravelling of what happened to Amy.  What I love though is the development of the friendship between Spencer and Lily.  A great, enjoyable, long book.