The Lies We Tell by Niki Mackay #bookreview blog tour @NikiMackayBooks @orionbooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n

I’m delighted to be sharing my review of The Lies We Tell by Niki Mackay on my blog today. With thanks to Tracy Fenton from Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

Last night I betrayed my husband.

This morning my daughter disappeared.

My husband may have forgiven my first mistake. But he will never forget this.

And so I have to find her.

Before it’s too late. For all of us.

MY THOUGHTS

I really enjoyed meeting Madison Attallee in Niki Mackay’s debut I, Witness so I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for her next. If you are new to this series, it’s certainly possible to read Niki’s latest book as a standalone.

In The Lies We Tell Miriam Jackson’s daughter, Tabitha, has gone missing, but she doesn’t want her husband, who is away on business in America, to know about her disappearance. Miriam, a well-known radio presenter, is fearful for Tabitha’s safety, but she fears if she tells her husband, dark secrets about her past will come to light, and that he won’t forgive her for what she has done. So she enlists the help of Madison Attallee to help find her.

Niki Mackay’s writing is brilliantly immersive. I was pulled into the mystery, and it was great catching up with Madison again. The Lies We Tell is a story with many layers, and I was interested to see them come together. As Miriam’s daughter goes missing in the present, we’re also taken back to 1994 when we hear from a character called Ruby. Ruby is a character who I felt desperately sorry for, and I became really intrigued in her story and how it would affect events happening in the present. And as the novel progresses, Niki Mackay reveals some really dark truths. This was when I became really fearful for Tabitha. I wasn’t sure at all how things were going to pan out for her and if she was going to make it out alive by the ending. I had several guesses along the way as to how events were going to unfold, but Niki successfully thwarted them.

I think the first thing that had me interested in this book was why Miriam didn’t want to tell her husband that their daughter was missing. Surely this would be the first thing, as a parent, you would do, and so I wanted to know what she was so desperate to hang onto in her past, that meant she didn’t want her husband involved in looking for Tabitha. Did it have any link at all to what had happened to her?

There were so many tense scenes throughout this book. What I really like about Madison’s character is, as a private investigator, she can gain the trust of people who otherwise wouldn’t have revealed everything they know to the police. This is the advantage that she can work with. I also liked the close relationship she has with the rest of the team who work with her, and I thought the scenes when she is with them at her offices were really well written.

Niki Mackay’s latest book has a clever and intricately woven plot. There are some heartbreaking revelations which really did make me feel for the characters. Very intriguing and addictive, this book comes totally recommended from me.

Publisher: Orion

Publication date: 27th June 2019

Print length: 336 pages

If you would like to purchase The Lies We Tell, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

Forget Me Not by Claire Allan #bookreview blog tour @ClaireAllan @AvonBooksUK @Sabah_K

I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for Forget Me Not by Claire Allan today on my blog. With thanks to Sabah Khan at Avon Books for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

I disappeared on a Tuesday afternoon. I was there one minute and the next I was gone. They’ve never found my body…

It’s six in the morning during the hottest summer on record when Elizabeth O’Loughlin, out walking her dog, comes across Clare, a victim of a horrific knife attack, clinging onto life at the side of the road.

Clare dies minutes later, but not before whispering her haunting last words to Elizabeth.

When it becomes clear that Clare’s killer has more than one murder on his mind, Elizabeth has to take drastic action or face losing everything.

But what if she can’t stop a killer determined never to be forgotten?

MY THOUGHTS

Forget Me Not was so, so good. Again, I’m now kicking myself that I haven’t read an author’s previous work before as this had me gripped right from the first page. I still have Claire Allan’s first two books to read, so I will definitely be bumping them higher up my reading pile.

In Claire’s latest book, we meet Elizabeth and Rachel, and it is their points of view the novel is told from. The book opens with Elizabeth discovering a body while out walking her dog. The woman who has been found, Clare, is just holding on, but while Elizabeth tries to comfort her, she dies, and her death sparks a massive manhunt for her killer, and the media become very interested in the case. Rachel is one of Clare’s closest friends and it soon becomes apparent that the killer isn’t finished. After Rachel receives some strange, terrifying notes, she knows she is next in the killer’s sights.

I think what made this book so gripping; aside from the storyline, was how Claire Allan writes. I became totally immersed in the story, and the short chapters always had that hook at the end which made me think, oh I’ll just read one more. I became very interested in Rachel’s backstory as the reasons behind Clare’s murder became clearer, and it seemed to be the case that it was something in their past linking them to the events happening in the present.

There’s a really chilling atmosphere right throughout the book as the police raced to catch the person responsible for Clare’s death. I could sense the clock ticking down, and I kept thinking that something bad was going to happen before any resolution to the investigation was made. And the notes left by the killer, for the supposed potential victims, really had me questioning who they were and what their motive was.

This is a novel that will keep you completely gripped. Forget Me Not is very, very good. I can’t wait to read more from Claire Allan.

Publisher: Avon

Publication date: 30th May 2019

Print length: 400 pages

If you would like to purchase Forget Me Not, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

 

Cold as the Grave by James Oswald blog tour #guestpost @SirBenfro @Wildfirebks @annecater

I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for the ninth novel in James Oswald’s Inspector Tony McLean series, Cold as the Grave today on my blog and I have a fascinating guest post from James to share with you. With thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

Her mummified body is hidden in the dark corner of a basement room, a room which seems to have been left untouched for decades. A room which feels as cold as the grave.

As a rowdy demonstration makes its slow and vocal way along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, Detective Chief Inspector Tony McLean’s team are on stand-by for any trouble. The newly promoted McLean is distracted, inexplicably drawn to a dead-end mews street… and a door, slightly ajar, which leads to this poor girl’s final resting place.

But how long has she been there, in her sleep of death? The answers are far from what McLean or anyone else could expect. The truth far more chilling than a simple cold case…

GUEST POST – 10 THINGS ABOUT JAMES OSWALD

1 – Although I come from a Scottish family and have lived most of my life in Scotland, I was actually born in the Rye Street Hospital in Bishops Stortford, England. Just across the road from the vets. I grew up across the county line, in north Essex, and so am technically an Essex boy.

 

2 – Much like my fictional detective, Tony McLean, I was sent away to boarding prep school at a very young age. I won’t name the school, as it’s not like it was back then at all, but I disliked it as much as Tony did his.

 

3 – My first car, bought very second hand not long after I had passed my driving test, was a 1976 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV. It cost me the princely sum of £750, and the same again to insure each of the four years I owned it. Sadly, like many Alfas of its vintage, it dissolved into rust and had to be scrapped. It fired a lifelong love of the marque though – I currently own two – and inspired my choice of car for Tony McLean.

 

4 – My first paid job was a pre-Christmas stint working on a turkey farm. I initially spent my time stubbing turkeys that had just been plucked (removing the few remaining feathers and broken quills from the still-warm skin), but I soon graduated on to weighing and processing orders. I can still smell them to this day, and haven’t had a turkey at Christmas since.

 

5 – I lived in a little village in the Cambrian Mountains in Wales called Cwmystwyth for almost ten years, moving there when my partner took up the post of livestock research scientist at the nearby Pwllpeiran Research Farm. The area, and the language and folklore of Wales inspired my epic fantasy series The Ballad of Sir Benfro.

 

6 – One of several short-term jobs I had while living in Wales was for a project called Wales Worm Watch. The job involved regular visits to a number of sheep farms dotted around the country, to collect fresh samples of sheep pooh for analysis to see whether their intestinal worms were developing resistance to the drugs used to kill them. Mostly this involved picking up pooh from the ground, but a few samples had to be taken directly, as it were. I can thus say that I have had a truly shit job.

 

7 – (Chief) Inspector McLean began life as a support character I wrote for a comic script submitted on spec to 2000AD in the early 1990s. He was originally called John, until I remembered that the Bruce Willis character in the Die Hard movies is John McClane. That comic script was never published, but it formed the basis for the eighth novel in the series, The Gathering Dark, written twenty five years later. Nothing is ever wasted!

 

8 – My first ever published work was in 2000AD. A Tharg’s Future Shock three page short story, it was called ‘It’s A Cold World’ and appeared in Prog. 865 in December 1993.

 

9 – In 2014 I appeared on American TV, on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It was just as bizarre and surreal a situation as you might imagine. Craig did his very best to promote me and my books, but due to some unexplained error, my US publisher had sent a copy of The Hangman’s Song, which wasn’t actually out until a few months later. It appeared as a prop in the next episode, as they recorded two back to back, but alas, no one was able to go out and buy it.

 

10 – When Penguin Books bought the rights to my first three Inspector McLean novels in late 2012, I spent the bulk of my initial advance payment on a new tractor. The manufacturer (Claas), found out, and ran a feature in their corporate magazine Tractor Times, with me on the cover.

 

If you would like to purchase Cold as the Grave, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

Kill For Me by Rebecca Bradley #bookreview blog tour @RebeccaJBradley @damppebbles

I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for Kill For Me by Rebecca Bradley. With thanks to Emma Welton at Damppebbles blog tours for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

A deadly game. An unstoppable killer. The perfect alibi.

Lucy Anderson is late collecting her daughter from nursery. A mistake that could prove fatal.
Her daughter is gone and there is only one way Lucy can get her back. The ransom is simple, she has to kill someone…

And this is just the beginning. A deadly game with a domino effect has started as the real killer forces others to do his bidding.

Can detective inspector Hannah Robbins find the killer’s next puppet before they’re forced to strike or will this be the case where her opponent has found the perfect way to kill?

Pick up Kill For Me for impossible choices and moral dilemmas and see where you would fall.

MY THOUGHTS

Rebecca Bradley’s latest novel, Kill For Me, will really pull you into a dark and terrifying world. Just how far would you be prepared to go to protect your family? For many, there is a simple answer to this question, but what the characters go through in this book is utterly horrific. This was really pacy and addictive, and I was rooting for DI Hannah Robins and her team to get to the bottom of what was going on.

I’ve read a couple of Rebecca’s books now, and I am really beginning to like Hannah and her team. There are some elements of previous books which feed into this one, particularly details about former cases they’ve worked on but it can easily be read as a stand-alone.

They have their work cut out in the latest instalment in this series. The first case the police are investigating is the murder of a woman, Lucy Andrews, who is found dead by her young daughter. But this case soon turns very complicated as evidence emerges linking her to a hit and run which happened the previous day. And as the net closes in on Lucy’s killer, someone else gets to them first.

This is really cleverly plotted, and there were some scenes in this book that left me reeling. I was desperate for the person behind the crimes to be caught. This is a killer who is very, very clever, and it seems as though they have thought of everything when it comes down to planning their crimes. And this was what made them so terrifying.

There’s a very strong race against time element right throughout this book, and it had me hooked right from the very start. I was guessing throughout. I was never able to pinpoint who the real criminal was until the very last moments. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Publisher: Amazon Media

Print length: 275 pages

If you would like to purchase Kill For Me, you can do so by clicking on the following link below. 

Amazon UK

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath #bookreview @mcgrathmj @HQstories

BLURB

You did nothing. That doesn’t mean you’re innocent.

On a night out, four friends witness a stranger in trouble. They decide to do nothing to help.

Later, a body washes up on the banks of the Thames – and the group realises that ignoring the woman has left blood on their hands.

But why did each of them refuse to step in? Why did none of them want to be noticed that night? Who is really responsible?

And is it possible that the victim was not really a stranger at all?

MY THOUGHTS

The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath is a masterclass in plotting and suspense. I loved the clever way in which she weaved this tale together, starting out at a night out in Wapping when a group of friends witness something horrific, a woman being attacked, after a night out at a music festival. But is there more to this crime than first meets the eye? And when a woman, who they suspect is the person they saw, turns up dead the next day, washed up on the Thames, none of them are particularly keen on telling the police what they saw. This is despite a massive public appeal for witnesses to come forward.

This had a very complicated plot, but Mel McGrath’s writing is really readable. What I really liked about it was how incredibly detailed the book was and how she fleshed out her main protagonists, the four members of the group. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likeable. I think the only character who I did feel for, was Cassie; the only member of the group who was trying to persuade the rest to go to the police with what they knew. I could see just how guilty she felt about staying silent on the matter and how this was beginning to eat away at her. It seemed to me that she was the only member of the group with a heart. And then I wanted to know why the rest of the group didn’t want to divulge this information? What possible reason could they have for not wanting to go to the police? Why wouldn’t they want to help?

This is a novel that will have you peering a little more closely at each character as Mel McGrath works backwards to peel back the layers, in what was going on in their lives in the lead up to the festival. I was utterly captivated as I waited to find out just what was going on and if there was anything they weren’t yet revealing about that one night that holds the plot together. I would just say though that there are some uncomfortable scenes, but Mel McGrath’s writing had me totally gripped, and I had to see how everything played out in the end.

This is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I’ve no doubt that it has sealed a place in my top ten. It’s a book that will perhaps also make you question about how you would react if you were in a similar situation. The Guilty Party is a very dark read, but very absorbing.

Publisher: HQ

Publication date: 7th March 2019

Print length: 384 pages

If you would like to purchase The Guilty Party, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below. 

Amazon UK   Kobo  Waterstones

What Lies Buried by Margaret Kirk #bookreview @HighlandWriter @orionbooks

I’m delighted to be sharing my thoughts on Margaret Kirk’s second novel, What Lies Buried on my blog today.

BLURB

A missing child. A seventy-year-old murder. And a killer who’s still on the loose.

Ten year-old Erin is missing; taken in broad daylight during a friend’s birthday party. With no witnesses and no leads, DI Lukas Mahler races against time to find her. But is it already too late for Erin – and will her abductor stop at one stolen child?

And the discovery of human remains on a construction site near Inverness confronts Mahler’s team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant’s murder linked to a nearby POW camp, or is there an even darker story to be uncovered?

With his team stretched to the limit, Mahler’s hunt for Erin’s abductor takes him from Inverness to the Lake District. And decades-old family secrets link both cases in a shocking final twist.

MY THOUGHTS

What Lies Buried, Margaret Kirk’s second novel tackles some hard-hitting and dark themes. In the opening, we are faced with the discovery of a decade’s old corpse, linked back to World War Two. But although the case is intriguing enough, the police have a much bigger problem on their hands. A young girl, ten-year-old Erin, is missing and hasn’t been seen for several days and she is their top priority. The police are no closer to finding out what happened to her, and they have very few leads to follow. But soon they begin to realise that they are facing a much larger and scarier problem.

What initially intrigued me when I was reading was the discovery of the corpse in the opening pages. I wanted to know who this person was who had been found and the reason why they had been killed and abandoned there. And then we have the missing girl, and the very few leads the police are following. I was just captivated by this story, and I had to find out how things were going to unfold, especially given the fact that the police didn’t seem to have a clue as to what was happening.

What I really like about Margaret’s writing is her ability to create atmosphere and the landscape where she sets her story, which she does so well. I found this as well in her first novel, Shadow Man. Inverness is brought to life, and Margaret’s description of the weather made me feel as though I was there and experiencing it for myself.

There is another interesting element in this book, which comes in the form of vigilantes. We get to read snippets of the conversations these people are having with each other, and it makes for quite scary reading. These are people who feel that they could do a much better job than the police, and they are keen to apprehend the person responsible for Erin’s disappearance themselves. And as the case grows darker, they are even more determined to carry out their plans.

What Lies Buried is another terrific addition to the DI Lukas Mahler series. Very clever and well thought out, I was on tenterhooks as the novel raced towards its climax. I can’t wait to read more.

Publisher: Orion

Publication date: 13th June 2019

Print length: 320 pages

If you would like to purchase What Lies Buried, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

Someone Is Lying by Jenny Blackhurst blog tour #bookreview @JennyBlackhurst @headlinepg @annecater

I’m delighted to be sharing my review of Someone Is Lying by Jenny Blackhurst today on my blog. With thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

One year after Erica Spencer trips and falls down a flight of stairs at a lavish Halloween party, the residents of the exclusive gated community where she lived have comes to terms with her death and moved on with their lives.

Until one day, a post on the school’s website announces there will be a podcast to expose what really happened on the night of the accident. Six suspects are named, with the podcaster promising to reveal the murderer by the end of the series.

Everyone in this community has secrets to keep, and one of them is already a killer…

MY THOUGHTS

Someone is Lying by Jenny Blackhurst is such a suspense-filled read. I devoured this book in just a couple of sittings. Right at the very opening, we hear from Erica who died several months earlier at a Halloween party after falling from a tree house in her neighbour’s garden. But Erica tells us that someone that night is lying about what happened and that her death was far from accidental. And that soon the truth will be revealed.

I love a novel set within a gated community, especially a crime novel. You get a real sense that the person who knows the truth about what happened to Erica is walking among the residents and that they are being pushed to the brink. I wasn’t sure at all what was going to happen to them.

I don’t think I found anyone in the group who become known as the Severn Six, particularly likeable. I did think that some of them did believe that they were better than most people, especially as they lived in an exclusive community. As I learnt more about what had happened on the night Erica died, I really despised some of them. But this made me all the more curious to find out if any of them could possibly have a motive for killing Erica if her death wasn’t an accident.

After we first hear from Erica herself right at the beginning, Jenny next introduces us to someone responsible for a new podcast promising to reveal the truth behind Erica’s death. This rocks the local community, and soon, those who were close to Erica find themselves under the spotlight as the podcaster reveals them to be the prime suspects.

I really liked the idea of the podcasts as this caused real unease among the characters which Jenny brought to life really well. They all become very anxious as to what this will mean for their community and for their futures. There are lots of interesting revelations about the characters that come to light, I think some I initially did find confusing as I was reading, but it made for compelling reading as the full details of their lives unfolded. I was desperate to find out who was behind the podcasts and what they would finally reveal about the night that Erica died.

There is a really sinister edge to this book, and this continues to build as the final plot details are revealed. Gripping and totally immersive, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Publisher: Headline

Publication date: 31st May 2019

Print length: 304 pages

If you would like to purchase Someone Is Lying, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below.

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

Injections of Insanity by Lorraine Mace #bookreview blog tour @lomace @rararesources

I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for Injections of Insanity by Lorraine Mace today on my blog. With thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

The third gripping instalment in the DI Paolo Sterling crime series. 

Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling has just six weeks to solve a series of murders by insulin injection, with nothing to connect the victims except the manner of death and a note left at each crime scene.

The murderer, determined to avenge a wrong from many years earlier, gets close to his prey by assuming various identities.

Can Paolo win in his race against the pretender?

MY THOUGHTS

Injections of Insanity is a gritty police procedural, the third in Lorraine Mace’s Detective Paolo Sterling series, but it can easily be read as a stand-alone. Lorraine opens her latest book with the murder of a professor, a man who wasn’t easily liked and many have one or two bad things to say about him. And they are not afraid to be vocal about it, even in the wake of his death. So the list of suspects for the police is potentially quite long. But what puzzles the detectives is a clue left behind by the killer, that the professor is the first in a list of planned victims, who will shortly follow. What is the killer’s motive? Is there any link between the victims? Can they stop the killer before they kill again?

This is a dark novel. There’s a real race against time here as the detectives fail to apprehend the killer quickly and when the leads begin to dry up. DI Paolo Sterling is desperate for a breakthrough, and I could see this coming through strongly as he tried to make sense of the case. Paolo and his team are determined to pull out all the stops to crack it.

I wanted to find out why the killer was targeting these specific people. There was something in their past that had upset them so much it has made them hell-bent on revenge. I wanted to know what could possibly provoke such a strong reaction in an individual.

I really liked Detective Paolo. I think one of the things I liked about his character in this book was his relationship with Jessica, which grows as the story progresses and it’ll be interesting to see how this develops in future books. I thought it added a real human touch to his character.

This is the first book by Lorraine Mace I have read, and I enjoyed reading it. The strong dialogue kept the pace flowing forward, and the writing was very immersive. I’m certain I’ll be returning to this series again. Injections of Insanity is a book that will keep you asking questions and keep you gripped. I would definitely recommend it to fans of police procedurals.

Publisher: Accent Press

Publication date: 13th June 2019

Print length: 221 pages

If you would like to purchase Injections of Insanity, you can do so by clicking on the following link below.

Amazon UK   Kobo

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

Without a Trace by Carissa Ann Lynch #bookreview blog tour @carissaannlynch @KillerReads @annecater

I’m delighted to be kicking off the blog tour for Without a Trace by Carissa Ann Lynch today on my blog, alongside Tracy Fenton from Compulsive Readers. With thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

Lily’s gone.
Someone took her.
Unless she was she never there…

A little girl has gone missing.

Lily was last seen being tucked into bed by her adoring mother, Nova. But the next morning, the bed is empty except for a creepy toy rabbit.

Has Nova’s abusive ex stolen his “little bunny” back for good?

At first, Officer Ellie James assumes this is a clear custody battle. Until she discovers that there are no pictures of the girl and her drawers are full of unused toys and brand new clothes that have never been worn…

Is Ellie searching for a missing child who doesn’t actually exist?

MY THOUGHTS

Without a Trace took me completely by surprise. I devoured this book in two days. This is the first book by Carissa Ann Lynch, which I have read, and I can definitely say that I will be reading more books by her. There’s a very creepy atmosphere to this story which kept me thinking that something terrible was going to happen or something dark was going to be discovered.

The lead detective in this book is Ellie Jamison. Ellie is a police officer who has caused friction in her team. She is known as the cop who shot one of their own. Even though Ellie did it under the right circumstances, there is still a level of distrust shown towards her, and she feels very much on her own. At the beginning of this book, they receive a call from a desperate woman, Nova, whose child has gone missing. But as Ellie arrives at the scene, a different picture begins to evolve, and soon this case takes a very intriguing and sinister turn. Does Nova’s daughter even exist?

This book took a very different turn to what I expected. I think this is what made me turn the pages so fast, as it didn’t feel like anything else I had read before and I really wanted to find out what had happened and what the truth was. The set-up was written so brilliantly, and Carissa made her story very unpredictable. I felt I couldn’t trust any of the characters who were somehow involved in the crime, especially Nova and her ex-husband.

Ellie was a character who I had a lot of sympathy for. She isn’t given an easy time by the rest of her team, and there is one police officer who treats her very unfairly. She is tenacious and determined, and these were the qualities in her character, which shone through most strongly. I also liked the relationship she had with her mother and that she asked for her advice and opinions. I think I would like to see Ellie return in a future book. I really warmed to her and I would be interested to see her character develop.

There were some very clever twists and some ideas which I hadn’t even thought possible. I could tell that Carissa had put a lot of thought and carried out a lot of research into some of her ideas.

This is a very twisty book that captured my interest right from the first page. You best make sure you have an afternoon free when you start this because you won’t want to put it down. The suspense continues to build until it reaches its climax. Captivating and very well plotted. Carissa Ann Lynch’s name is definitely now on my radar. I can’t wait to read more from her.

Publisher: Killer Reads

Publication date: 5th April 2019

Print length: 200 pages

If you would like to purchase Without a Trace, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below. 

Amazon UK   Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

Now You See Me by Chris McGeorge blog tour #bookreview @crmcgeorge @orionbooks @Tr4cyF3nt0n

I’m thrilled to be kicking off the blog tour today for Now You See Me by Chris McGeorge. With thanks to Tracy Fenton from Compulsive Readers for inviting me to take part.

BLURB

Six people went in. Only one came out…

Introducing Standedge Tunnel: the longest canal tunnel in England.

Last year six students went in, and two and a half hours later, the boat reappeared on the other side with only one of the students, unconscious, and the dog.

The case of the Standedge Six was largely kept from the national media. The police investigation concluded that the only remaining student, Matthew, killed his friends, hid the bodies on the boat and returned later to move them to an undisclosed location.

Matthew is in prison . . . but maintains he is innocent.

Robert Ferringham is grieving for his missing wife, Sam. So when Matthew contacts him for help with his case, promising information on Sam, Robert has no choice but to help. But can he trust Matthew?

And how will he solve the insolvable case?

MY THOUGHTS

Now You See Me is an addictive page-turner by Chris McGeorge. We meet Robin, a struggling writer who has just released his new memoir about how he has coped with the disappearance of his wife. While at a book signing he receives an anonymous call from a man claiming to have had contact with his wife, a man who is in prison, about to be put on trial for the murder of five people. He is desperate for Robin’s help, and Robin can’t help but be drawn into the mysterious situation. But why would his wife contact a soon to be convicted criminal and not him? Why is this man so desperate for Robin’s help?

Right from the opening, I had questions that I needed to know the answers to. Who was the man who called Robin? Would Robin agree to help him? Chris McGeorge has created an utterly brilliant mystery to follow. I love a mystery where the spotlight shines on a small group of people, in this case, the Standedge five. You know that someone knows the answers to what happened to them the day they went missing in the tunnel, and I kept questioning if the police did, in fact, have the right person.

There’s a claustrophobic feeling as Robin gets closer and closer to the truth and he can sense the residents of the town where the five went missing from, becoming angrier and angrier. They are keen to put the case to bed. The person responsible for the crime was found. They don’t want anyone raking it up again. I really wanted to know if there was anything that the people in the town were hiding, especially those who were closest to the case.

This is the first book I’ve read by Chris McGeorge, and it won’t be my last. Full of mystery and suspense and with a cast of characters who will keep you gripped, this is a really good read; I flew through it. You won’t be disappointed.

Publisher: Orion

Publication date: 13th June 2019

Print length: 302 pages

If you would like to purchase Now You See Me, you can do so by clicking on one of the following links below. 

Amazon UK  Kobo  Waterstones

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR