My review

I chose this book because of 2 reasons

The book was published by Bookouture who usually come up with great novels. Secondly, the premise of the books sounded thrilling. I wanted something to break the humdrum of life and I thought this was it!!

But woe befell me before I could get to mid-way of the book. The story goes thus; Karl, driving down the wet road late at night, had to brake hard to avoid hitting a woman Liz Smith, who claims to have been chased by a man. He pulls her into his car and sees a man in black baklava a distance away. So far so good, it was exciting. I had a lot of questions and I was absolutely blown away by the beginning.

Then the logic goes awry; the woman does not seem to want to go to the police and would not give any reasons, and Karl being the ‘good’ Samaritan or should I say foolish, takes her at face value, puts his family and business at risk, takes her to his shop. Then the book takes a tangential path away from all intelligence.

I like a good thriller, make no mistake, but here the characters all seem to be pretty dumb. There is the ganglord killed in chapter 2, there are the killers and their points of view. They are not even scary, they are just regular, run in the mill fictional killers, written in more for shock value. I couldn’t connect with the woman Liz Smith, she was demanding and scornful after being helped or the main character Karl, who just kept taking foolish decisions. Karl’s wife was okay, better than the main characters, till she refused to go to her father’s place to escape the henchmen, putting herself and her unborn child at risk…. Well….

This being the debut, the author Jake Cross has made a good effort. To his credit, he has come up with a good twist which makes the book slightly fun to read.

But somehow with every book claiming to be a thriller, I have found that the story does not match up to the tag line, could have been so much better.

And I wish the tag line did not tell me, I wouldn’t be able to put the book down. I should be the one telling the world that!! I totally could. This nearly became a DNF!!

I received an ARC from NetGalley and publisher Bookouture, and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating : 2.5 stars

Book blurb

On a wet road in the black of night, Karl Seabury is driving home to his pregnant wife. Suddenly, caught in his headlights in the middle of the road is a woman shaking with fright.

The woman says her name is Liz Smith, that her home was attacked, and that she was the only one to escape.

In a split-second decision, Karl decides to help her to safety. But can he really trust her? Or has he put his family in danger?

Product Details

Publication date : 27th March, 2018

Publisher : Bookouture

Language : English

Available on Amazon

Very close to DNF