The Detective (2025) by Australian writer Matthew Reilly features a Care Experienced character as a private investigator.

Sam Speedman’s father left when Sam was 4 & his mother was killed in a car accident 5 years later. Sam therefore grew up in foster care, eventually finding a permanent home with Andrej & Melita Barkowiak, a Polish-American couple who live in Houston, Texas.

Sam Speedman sends his foster parents $17,000 each Christmas “to help them out” (Reilly, 127).

As the story opens, Speedman is based in Houston & has been a PI for 11 years. He has a PhD in criminology & has worked a variety of cases involving stalkers, cheating husbands & scammers.

As fastidious as he is, Speedman is aware of one case in which he has been unsuccessful; a Black woman has been missing since 10 September 2018. LaToya Martyn’s parents had hired him to find their daughter but…

He has, however, connected that case to a series of others which go back to 1877, and which involve the regular disappearance of Black women as well as the investigators who try to find them.

Sam’s search for LaToya Martyn is suddenly rejuvenated by the finding of LaToya’s dead baby after a Louisiana storm.

As Sam renews his search for LaToya Martyn (& is ably assisted by an intern & an FBI agent), he finds out about a case of modern slavery which links back to the era (1619-1865) when slavery was legal in America.