Nothing to See Here by Susan Lewis

This is good, very good, but you are going to have to be prepared to give it your full attention if you are going to stand a chance of keeping up with all the names. I could easily see this becoming a box set on Netflix as there are sufficient twists and turns it would keep you hanging on for the next episode.

Susan Lewis has created a very realistic account of a terrible crime where no-one has ever been bought to justice. Three women were murdered, and a child of one of the victims disappeared on the same day, but the trail of enquiries quickly went cold and the investigation was shut down.

The chief suspect was the husband of one of the women, as he didn't have a convincing alibi for where he was on the day, but with no hard evidence to link him to the murders, he had to be released from custody. Sixteen years later, the team behind a crime investigation podcast called Hindsight pick up the case and quickly find that there is a lot more to investigate than just the murders.

The author, goes into great detail about all the strands of the investigation carried out by Cristi and Connor from the Hindsight pod, and their broadcasts draw a large audience that include the victims' families and other crucial witnesses. Susan Lewis must have done a huge amount of research to put this story together, and has not relied on 'convenient coincidences' to bring the book to a conclusion. The plot plays out exactly as it would do in real life, and she has managed to present two conflicting accounts of what could have been the motive for the murder in such a way that all possible endings stay open.

In addition to the murder case, the lead character Cristi has her own issues with her private life, so there are plenty more names to take into account as you juggle with all that as well, but press on because it is worth it.

Comments

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Published: 2022, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: South America, family relationships, business My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If I ever tell my life story, I will take a leaf out of Violeta's book and make sure you understand that everybody loved me, and despite all sorts of questionable behaviour on my part, I leave the world as a winner. This is the story of a hundred year life. Violeta is approaching the end, but before she goes she is determined to write out her life story for someone she loves dearly. You don't get to know who that special someone is for most of the book, but that just serves to give the narrative a little twist. I didn't much like the character of Violeta but I understand that people who don't go round upsetting the apple cart don't make for very interesting stories. With such a great time span to play with, Isabel Allende had plenty of scope for changing Violeta's circumstances and adding in references to world events to keep the reader...

Holding by Graham Norton

Published: October 2016, Hodder and Stoughton Genre: fiction Themes: Ireland, crime, secrets, relationships, family My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ I went into the library looking for a book by Graham Norton as I keep seeing positive comments about his books on Twitter, and I felt I might be missing something. Holding seems to be his first book, and the library copy has a Radio 2 Book Club sticker on it, and I think it's fair to say that it's a perfect book for that reading group. It's a chatty style of writing that I could imagine would be how Graham would recount a tale if he was in conversation with someone, and there are sufficient strong elements to the plot-line to keep it interesting to the end. When I first started reading I thought it was going to be a bit thin on plot, as much of the story involved character descriptions, and I was starting to wonder how it was going to pull together. Then the dramatic events began to unfold and, once I could see how everyon...

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper

Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2021 Genre: Fiction Themes: Ancient Pompeii, slaves, brothel My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If, like me, you spent most of your history lessons looking out the window and didn't really absorb very much about the ancient Roman Empire, nil desperandum, as you will still manage perfectly well with this book. Set in first century Pompeii, the story follows the life of Amara, a young Greek woman who has been shipped to Pompeii as a slave and then bought by the owner of The Wolf Den brothel. As the daughter of a doctor, she was bought up in relatively comfortable circumstances, but a series of terrible events turned her life upside down and she is now trapped in an endless cycle of fear and degradation with almost no hope of escape. Amara is one of a group of slaves working in the Wolf Den, and they do what they can to protect one another from serious harm, but Amara knows that if she wants anything better for herself, she must make the brothel ow...

dittybox

Search This Blog