Book Review: THE MISSING HOURS by Emma Kavanagh

Title: The Missing Hours
Author: Emma Kavanagh
Publisher: Random House UK, Cornerstone
Read: February 2016
Expected publication: 21 April 2016



Synopsis (Goodreads):

A woman disappears

One moment, Selena Cole is in the playground with her children and the next, she has vanished without a trace.

A woman returns

Twenty hours later, Selena is found safe and well, but with no memory of where she has been.

What took place in those missing hours, and are they linked to the discovery of a nearby murder?

‘Is it a forgetting or a deception?’

My thoughts:

I have only just discovered author Emma Kavanagh and am halfway through the audio-version of her previous novel “Hidden” (which is great), so was thrilled to receive this preview copy of her latest novel from the publisher.

Psychologist Selena Cole and her husband have established a successful but unusual business together – negotiating ransom with kidnappers in an effort to free hostages. After her husband is tragically killed in a bomb blast during their last business trip, Selena is forced to take a step back from the business and concentrate on bringing up her two small daughters as a sole parent, still reeling from her loss. One afternoon, whilst taking the girls to the playground, Selena disappears without a trace. Considering her recent personal tragedy, police hold grave fears for her safety. When she appears  20 hours later unharmed but without recollection of the time she was “missing”, everyone is relieved and happy to close the case – everyone except DC Leah Mackay, who suspects that there may be something sinister underlying Selena’s “disappearance”. Something which may be connected to her former job as negotiator. Something which may even tie her to the murder of a lawyer who was found stabbed the same day Selena went missing. Leah just can’t let it rest ....

I loved the unusual background of this novel, especially the case histories of kidnap and ransom which are inserted into the storyline in the form of reports and add an intriguing element to this police procedural. Kavanagh has obviously done her research on the subject matter, and I found myself eagerly looking up various snippets of information that intrigued me, especially related to the drug “Devil’s Breath” – scary stuff! Whilst storylines with multiple POV’s can sometimes be disjointed or confusing, they worked well for me in this story, adding to the mystery and providing interesting background information. In the end, all stories come together in a surprising conclusion which perhaps did not answer all my questions but threw in a surprise element I had not considered.

All in all a satisfying and intriguing read – and the discovery of an author I hope to read a lot more from in future.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: DARKEST PLACE by Jaye Ford

Title: Darkest Place
Author: Jaye Ford
Publisher: Random House Australia
Read: February 2016



Synopsis (Goodreads):

An adrenaline-pumping suspense novel from the author of Beyond Fear. What do you do when your nightmares are real – and no one believes you?

Carly Townsend is starting over after a decade of tragedy and pain. In a new town and a new apartment she's determined to leave the memories and failures of her past behind.

However that dream is shattered in the dead of night when she is woken by the shadow of a man next to her bed, silently watching her. And it happens week after week.

Yet there is no way an intruder could have entered the apartment. It's on the fourth floor, the doors are locked and there is no evidence that anyone has been inside.

With the police doubting her story, and her psychologist suggesting it's all just a dream, Carly is on her own. And being alone isn't so appealing when you're scared to go to sleep . . .

My thoughts:

Jaye Ford has been on my to-read list for a long time, and I was very excited to receive a free copy of her latest novel from the publisher – and it did not disappoint!

After the tragic death of her friends in a climbing accident and the breakdown of her marriage, Charlotte Townsend finds the burden of guilt and grief too much to bear and decides to move to the city to leave her sad past behind. Reinventing herself as “Carly” she buys a new funky apartment in a converted warehouse and enrols in a TAFE course with the intention of reconnecting to her younger, confident self. The first days in her new home are wonderful – as Carly meets some of the other residents of the apartment building, she feels for the first time in years that she is not burdened by her past. Perhaps there is hope for the future yet?

On the third night in her new home, Carly wakes in the middle of the night to the presence of an intruder in her room. The dark silhouette of a man is sitting on the side of her bed, gently stroking her, his breath touching her skin whilst she feels pinned to the bed, unable to move. Terrified, Carly calls the police, but despite an intense search of her apartment they cannot find any sign of illegal entry. Shaken, Carly is determined not to let the incident shatter her new found confidence. She makes sure that her doors and windows are locked at all times, and installs a security chain on the door for extra protection. But a few nights later the intruder appears again – and again. Without evidence, Carly’s credibility is questioned, until she can no longer trust anyone around her – including her own sanity.

Ford is a master of building suspense – once I picked up the book I could not put it down, which made for very little sleep! I loved the balance of suspense, drama and romance, which worked very well in this context. With well-drawn characters, each one coming with a complex and somewhat murky past, the shadow of suspicion falls heavily on many of them throughout the story’s progression, most of all on Carly herself. Can the reader really trust her account of events, given her fragile psyche?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it highly to anyone who enjoys a good suspense story – especially one with an Australian setting. A couple of elements in the ending did not quite work for me, but as a whole these minor quibbles did not dampen the enjoyment of reading this book to the end. One of my favourite reads this year so far.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: FOOL ME ONCE by Harlan Coben

Title: Fool Me Once
Author: Harlan Coben
Publisher: Dutton
Read: February 2016
Expected publication: 22 March 2016



Synopsis (Goodreads):

In the course of eight consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers, millions of readers have discovered Harlan Coben’s page-turning thrillers, filled with his trademark edge-of-your-seat suspense and gut-wrenching emotion. In Fool Me Once, Coben once again outdoes himself.

Former special ops pilot Maya, home from the war, sees an unthinkable image captured by her nanny cam while she is at work: her two-year-old daughter playing with Maya’s husband, Joe—who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier. The provocative question at the heart of the mystery: Can you believe everything you see with your own eyes, even when you desperately want to? To find the answer, Maya must finally come to terms with deep secrets and deceit in her own past before she can face the unbelievable truth about her husband—and herself.

My thoughts:

Ex-soldier and helicopter pilot Maya Burkett has had a lot of tragedy in her life – her last tour of Iraq ended in tragedy, her sister was murdered whilst she was overseas, and her husband was shot in front of her eyes in an apparent mugging in Central Park. Every night she has to live with the demons of her PTSD, vivid dreams of haunting images which torture her and keep her awake. Only her 2-year old daughter Lily keeps her grounded, although life as single parent and sole income earner is tough. Maya has never been a stay-at-home mum, so she hires a nanny to look after her daughter whilst she is at work. To make sure Lily is in good hands, Maya installs a “nanny-cam” on advice of a good friend, a hidden camera concealed in a digital photo frame in the living room. She gets the shock of her life when she checks the footage one day to see her dead husband Joe Burkett playing on the sofa with Lily.

Not to give too much away, the incident is a catalyst for Maya to look deeper into her husband’s death, finding links to events of the past deeply shrouded in secrecy and fiercely protected by Joe’s wealthy family. More shockingly, some links seem to lead to her sister, and may ultimately be related to her death. But can Maya trust her own instincts, or are these links figments of her imagination related to her PTSD?

In typical Harlan Coben fashion, the story twists and turns and leaves the reader guessing constantly – just when you think you have worked it out, there is another link in the chain leading off into a completely different direction. Fast-paced and full of suspense, this book will appeal to readers who like to be kept guessing until the very end.

I have been a long-time fan of Coben’s writing and was very excited to receive this preview copy from the publisher. Unfortunately the book did not totally work for me. Whilst I enjoyed the different elements of the plot, I found it hard to engage with the characters, which I do not usually experience with Coben’s novels. Whilst Maya was a tough and strong protagonist, I also found her very remote and difficult to relate to. Her PTSD somehow did not convince me, and I struggled to connect on every level. 2.5 stars from me for that reason.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: THE GIRL YOU LOST by Kathryn Croft

Title: The Girl You Lost
Author: Kathryn Croft
Publisher: Bookouture
Read: January 2016
Expected publication: 5 February 2016



Synopsis (Goodreads):

Eighteen years ago, Simone Porter’s six-month-old daughter, Helena, was abducted. Simone and husband, Matt, have slowly rebuilt their shattered lives, but the pain at losing their child has never left them.

Then a young woman, Grace, appears out of the blue and tells Simone she has information about her stolen baby. But just who is Grace – and can Simone trust her?

When Grace herself disappears, Simone becomes embroiled in a desperate search for her daughter and the woman who has vital clues about her whereabouts.

Simone is inching closer to the truth but it’ll take her into dangerous and disturbing territory.

Simone lost her baby. Will she lose her life trying to find her? 

My thoughts:

For 18 years Simone Porter has struggled to put the abduction of her then 6-months old daughter Helena behind her and get on with her life, forging a career as a successful journalist whose empathy for parents with missing children nets her some interesting and heart wrenching stories. One day a young woman, Grace, knocks on her door, claiming that she has received information from a friend that makes her believe she might be Helena, Simone’s missing child. But before Simone can confirm whether the girl’s claim is true or not, Grace also disappears without a trace, and Simone is facing heartbreak and uncertainty all over again ....

I loved the premise of the story and was very excited to receive a copy from the publisher for an honest review. Unfortunately though the book did not grip me or deliver for me, for various reasons. Loathe to imagine the heartbreak a parent would face on losing a child in such horrible circumstances, I found Simone to be rather unemotional and rational on being faced with a girl who might be her long-lost daughter. And if her actions seemed out of character, the people around her also tended to act in a manner that was unconvincing and often bordering on the bizarre (some eye rolls and “yeah right”s being exclaimed quite regularly as I read on). This made me soon lose interest in the story as I struggled to connect to any of the characters or care what happened to them. For me, the story lacked credibility and emotional depth, and I found myself skipping pages just to get to the end and find out the answers. Sadly not the right book for me, but judging on other reviews many readers did enjoy it, so I will not give any spoilers and let people judge for themselves.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: BREAKDOWN by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Breakdown: an Alex Delaware Novel (Alex Delaware #31)
Author: Jonathan Kellerman
Publisher: Random House (Ballantine Books)
Read: January 2016
Expected publication: 2 February 2016



Synopsis (Goodreads):

In #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman’s thrilling new blockbuster Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis investigate the murder of a Hollywood actress pushed to the limits of sanity.

Psychologist sleuth Alex Delaware is surprised to get the call when well-known TV actress Zelda Chase turns up half-naked, half-mad in the LA’s rural Westside. He has little connection to the starlet, save a psychiatric evaluation he performed on her adopted daughter several years ago, a child who has since vanished without a trace and whom Zelda refuses to talk about. When the actress turns up dead a few weeks later without a scratch on her, Delaware calls in police lieutenant Milo Sturgis to help him crack the case—or at least the wall of silence surrounding it. When the body of a second actress turns up with the same mysterious cause of death, Delaware and Sturgis start to wonder—is this a copycat case or a coincidence? When they uncover the death of another actress, a star from another era who vanished decades ago, never to be found, they realize they’re facing one of the their most baffling, mind-bending cases yet.

My thoughts:

I have been a fan of Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels for a long time, and was very happy to receive a copy of his latest book from Netgalley. Even with 31 books of the series now in circulation, Kellerman has not lost his edge and manages to deliver a taut and interesting psychological thriller, featuring super sleuth and child psychologist Alex Delaware and his detective friend Milo Sturgis.

Alex is somewhat surprised and a little annoyed when he receives a call from the pushy manager of a newly established  but somewhat questionable mental health facility, who asks him to evaluate a patient of theirs. It seems that  Zelda Chase, a former actress who has fallen on hard times and now lives on the streets, has suffered a psychotic episode and has created a disturbance in a wealthy part of town by digging up a garden and babbling incoherently. Five years earlier, Alex had been asked by a colleague to evaluate her young son, Ovid, due to concerns that Zelda’s mental health had been deteriorating. However, Alex is unable to establish what has happened to the boy, as Zelda is not capable of rational answers and nobody seems to know anything about the fate of the child from the moment Zelda started living on the streets. When Zelda turns up dead on the property of a wealthy socialite a short time later, Alex suspects foul play and becomes even more concerned for the boy’s welfare – if he is still alive. Soon more deaths are being linked to the same neighbourhood, and the quest to find Ovid becomes a race against time ....

The novel is perhaps not as dark or fast paced as some of the previous ones in the series, but contains the same intelligent plot development and step-by-step deductions that are the hallmark of Alex Delaware’s investigations. I always enjoy the careful unravelling of the mystery and the attention to detail, and this novel is no exception. Alex’s role as psychologist really comes into its own here, as mental illness features heavily as a theme, as does the plight of so many mentally ill people who end up on the streets, vulnerable to falling prey to predators or questionable mental health facilities.

Breakdown is a slow but intelligent psychological thriller, and I very much enjoyed reading it. Recommended reading, especially for fans of the series.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.