I enjoyed Luna’s debut novel Two Girls Down, which introduced the feisty private investigator Alice

Vega, and so read this book with interest. Vega and her sometime partner Cap, a former policeman, are interesting characters – no-nonsense, skilled, blunt and focused individuals who are even more formidable as a pair and can go places and do things the police and the FBI sometimes are unable to.

In The Janes, two unidentified girls are found murdered and dumped – the ‘Jane Does’ of the title. They are very young and had been abused before death. But what is most strange about them is they both have intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUDs) inserted, leading to the immediate assumption that they had somehow been a part of sexual trafficking and slavery.

Vega and Cap begin to unravel what might have happened to these young women and, most importantly, how to access and retrieve any others who are caught up in this hideous underground trade.

This is a confronting and violent story. I feel the need to include a trigger warning as this book makes some deeply uncomfortable reading and I imagine that it would be quite traumatic for people who have been exposed to sexual violence.

As a fast-moving story this hits all the points; it is a gritty, complex story with good characterisation and a disturbing view of the sex trade in the USA.

Reviewed by Lesley West