Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of The Lost Witness by Robert Ellis

The Lost Witness by Robert Ellis

The Lost Witness

A Lena Gamble Novel

by Robert Ellis

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

With his novel City of Fire, Robert Ellis debuted a dynamic new character in Los Angeles detective Lena Gamble, but also captured a vivid picture of the city of Los Angeles. Readers and critics made City of Fire an instant phenomenon, as the book became a Los Angeles Times bestseller and was named a top summer read by People magazine, USA Today, and The New York Times.

Now Lena Gamble is a cop held in disgrace by department higher-ups for the explosive way the Romeo case played out, though she’s still hailed as a hero by her colleagues for catching the killer. For her punishment, she hasn’t handled a real murder investigation in eight months. When the chief finally tosses her a case, she’s thrilled until she gets a look at the scene and realizes he’s probably setting her up to be exiled once and for all: The victim is unidentified, and there are no witnesses, and no leads. Just the body, chopped into pieces and dropped in a Dumpster—gruesome enough to ensure that once again the media will be following Lena’s every move.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Ellis succeeds masterfully in both playing fair and pulling surprise after surprise in a story that feels like a runaway car plunging down a mountain road full of switchbacks." - Publishers Weekly.

"Ellis's elaborate puzzle is a nail-biter to the final page. Great LA settings enhance this high-speed thriller." - Library Journal.

"...enough bodies, buckets of blood and double-crosses to agitate conspiracy buffs, but interesting mainly as a possible screen vehicle for a distaff Bruce Willis." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Starred Review. Fans of Michael Connelly and T. Jefferson Parker will relish Ellis's second crackling thriller" - Booklist.

This information about The Lost Witness was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis is a former filmmaker and political media consultant from Los Angeles. He is the author of three bestselling crime novels, Access to Power, The Dead Room, and the critically acclaimed City of Fire, which also garnered praise from authors as diverse as Michael Connelly and Janet Evanovich. For more information about Robert Ellis, visit www.RobertEllis.net.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Lost Witness, try these:

  • News of the World jacket

    News of the World

    by Paulette Jiles

    Published 2017

    About this book

    It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

  • Bull Mountain jacket

    Bull Mountain

    by Brian Panowich

    Published 2016

    About this book

    Winner of the 2015 BookBrowse Debut Author Award

    From a remarkable new voice in Southern fiction, a multigenerational saga of crime, family, and vengeance.

  • Medicine Walk jacket

    Medicine Walk

    by Richard Wagamese

    Published 2016

    About this book

    Written in luminous prose and infused by an uncommonly rich sense of place, Medicine Walk is a stunning achievement.

We have 6 read-alikes for The Lost Witness, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.