{
    "id": 501490,
    "slug": "the-altar-girls-patricia-gibney",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "The Altar Girls",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": "D.I. Lottie Parker",
    "collection_part_number": "13",
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "<p>The little girl looked like an angel in her thin white robe, her long black hair spread around her head like a dark halo on the snow. Her hands rested on her chest, fingers interlaced as if she had fallen asleep while praying. But she would never wake up again&hellip; When Detective Lottie Parker receives news that a child&rsquo;s body has been found in the frozen grounds of the cathedral, a shiver runs down her spine. She&rsquo;s terrified it will be eight-year-old Willow Devine, reported missing that morning. But when she arrives at the cathedral, holding a photo of Willow with her blonde ponytail and gap-toothed smile, she gets a terrible shock. The body is a young girl, wrapped in a white shroud, a rosary clutched in her frozen fingers. But her hair is dark, not fair. This girl isn&rsquo;t Willow but another eight-year-old, Naomi. Desperate to find a connection between the two girls and to find Willow before it is too late, Lottie speaks to the girls&rsquo; families and discovers that both girls were altar servers at the cathedral. The charismatic priest Father Maguire has a watertight alibi for the time the girls went missing, but Lottie suspects the confused old lady traumatised by the discovery of Naomi&rsquo;s body is hiding something&hellip; A day later, Willow&rsquo;s little body is found wrapped in a white robe in the snowy grounds of a church across town. Lottie is devastated, convinced now that she can&rsquo;t trust anyone, least of all the girls&rsquo; parents. Why did Willow&rsquo;s mother claim the girls didn&rsquo;t know each other? And why are there no photos of Naomi in her mother&rsquo;s shabby house? But when a little boy from the choir goes missing too, Lottie realises she must spread her net wider. Can she stop this twisted killer before another precious life is stolen?</p>",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 476,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2023-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "2024-11-11",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T14:36:39+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-29T00:42:15+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4547,
        "slug": "bookouture",
        "name": "Bookouture",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:14:18+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:04:57+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 311331,
            "slug": "patricia-gibney-2",
            "key_names": "Gibney",
            "names_before_key": "Patricia",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": []
}