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challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This was a tense and exciting read but it had the potential to be so much better.
It follows Sally, a mother of two young children who had an affair last year. One night she sees the name of her lover on the news, his wife and daughter have been murdered but the man on the TV is not him!
There were so many twists and turns in this book, it kept me guessing until the end. It is the third installment of the Spilling CID series and follows the lives of the police officers on the case as well as Sally. I really wish that it didn't. A lot of the scenes between the police officers were boring and didn't add anything to the overall story. This may not be the case if you have read the rest of the series, but for me I was much more invested in what Sally was doing than whether or not two of the police officers were going to get married.
The book explored themes of motherhood. The struggles of being a mother to young children and having a career, how not all women enjoy motherhood and the pressure to appear to have the perfect family. It also portrayed how men are not held to the same standard, for example, Sally's absolutely useless husband who may as well have been her 3rd child, Mark Bretherick (Sally's lover) who can carry on travelling around the world on business trips and barely knows his daughter or DC Sellers who gets bored of his stay at home wife so cheats on her with a younger woman. then of course there is Professor Hey, who covers up the death of his wife and child because it would show the world that he did not have a perfect family at all. </spolier> The male characters in this book were absolutely awful and misogynistic which put me off at the time but when considering these themes it makes sense for them to act this way. I believe it is probably accurate to how many men in the police force think, especially back when this book was released in 2007.
This book did suffer from over writing at times and featured one of the most boring paragraphs I have ever read which almost made me throw the book away, but I'm glad I carried on as there were some really thrilling moments and the overall story was interesting.
I won't be rushing out to read the rest of the Spilling CID series but I did enjoy the murder mystery of this book. If you are a fan of crime or thriller then definitely give it a go.
It follows Sally, a mother of two young children who had an affair last year. One night she sees the name of her lover on the news, his wife and daughter have been murdered but the man on the TV is not him!
There were so many twists and turns in this book, it kept me guessing until the end. It is the third installment of the Spilling CID series and follows the lives of the police officers on the case as well as Sally. I really wish that it didn't. A lot of the scenes between the police officers were boring and didn't add anything to the overall story. This may not be the case if you have read the rest of the series, but for me I was much more invested in what Sally was doing than whether or not two of the police officers were going to get married.
The book explored themes of motherhood. The struggles of being a mother to young children and having a career, how not all women enjoy motherhood and the pressure to appear to have the perfect family. It also portrayed how men are not held to the same standard, for example, Sally's absolutely useless husband who may as well have been her 3rd child, Mark Bretherick (Sally's lover) who can carry on travelling around the world on business trips and barely knows his daughter or DC Sellers who gets bored of his stay at home wife so cheats on her with a younger woman.
This book did suffer from over writing at times and featured one of the most boring paragraphs I have ever read which almost made me throw the book away, but I'm glad I carried on as there were some really thrilling moments and the overall story was interesting.
I won't be rushing out to read the rest of the Spilling CID series but I did enjoy the murder mystery of this book. If you are a fan of crime or thriller then definitely give it a go.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Stalking, and Torture
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