The Devil's Companions opens at the scene of a break in and vandalism at a nun's convent. The break-in investigation starts off suitably low key with interviews of the resident nuns not really helping to shed much light on the destruction in their convent. But then, the unexpected happens, the fingerprints of Anna Brennan, a young girl who has been missing for 20 years have surfaced when all of the nuns are printed for comparison.

The case that had torn the parish of St Michaels apart for all those years has just been dramatically reopened and it has fallen to young detective Greg Raine to solve it.

Greg Raine is an up and coming policeman, the son of a policeman and, in fact, the son of the detective who originally ran the investigation into Anna Brennan's abduction. He instantly strikes us as being a likable guy displaying strangely endearing signs of discomfort when it comes to dealing with the nuns, obviously originating from the memories that are brought back from his school days. The prickly interaction between Greg and the head of the convent, Mother Dominic is most amusing in the early stages with Mother Dominic showing fierce protectiveness over her sisters and effectively putting Greg in his place, as if he were once again back in school. Their jousting provides a light prelude to the darker case that is to follow.

Anna Brennan was abducted from her seat at midnight mass while her parents left her for a moment to receive Communion. Her disappearance happens to be an event that has been hanging over the entire community for years, not to mention the policemen who were involved in the investigation and in turn, through his father's heavy involvement, over Greg Raine.

His entire investigation is shrouded in mystery. How on earth could a child be abducted from a crowded church with no witnesses? Has Anna been secretly hidden by a convent of nuns all this time? Why has the reopening of the case been met with so much resistance from Greg's superior officers and his father? It's all very tantalizing that leads you to believe that there is a deeper secret about Anna Brennan that still has to be revealed.

John Misto has constructed a brilliant mystery that has been painstakingly set up through the effort to build a complete picture of the past. A lot of importance is placed on the character backgrounds of each of the main players. Greg Raines and the stormy relationship with his dying father, the nuns from the convent, Anna Brennan and her parents are all carefully detailed.

Further digging into Greg's past reveals that he was a troubled youth while growing up, forever getting into trouble at school, plagued by nightmares and bedwetting and was even expelled from school. As an adult he displays similar disruptive traits that manifest themselves mainly as stubbornness, a good quality for a detective. This has the effect of making every interaction he has with others extremely adversarial. Consequently there is an unsettled, edgy quality to the book, placing you on edge with the expectation that at any moment something is going to happen. He is an unpredictable man and this results in unpredictable movements.

It's a cold case investigation, it's a psychological thriller and it's a darkly shocking fight that brings all kinds of unexpected dangers out into the open. Misto hurries the story forward building clue upon clue until unleashing a spine-tingling ending that had me applauding (I kid you not).

This is easily the best crime fiction novel I have read this year. The mystery has been masterfully set up, moving fluidly to a blockbuster of an ending that simply blew me away. The characters are easy to relate to, and even though not all of them particularly likable, they are fully fleshed out playing vital roles in the story's final outcome. If you have the opportunity to lay your hands on a copy of The Devil's Companions I heartily recommend you doing so.