★★★★
SYNOPSIS:
Detective Inspector Robin Lyons is going home.
Dismissed for misconduct from the Met’s Homicide Command after refusing to follow orders, unable to pay her bills (or hold down a relationship), she has no choice but to take her teenage daughter Lennie and move back in with her parents in the city she thought she’d escaped forever at 18.
In Birmingham, sharing a bunkbed with Lennie and navigating the stormy relationship with her mother, Robin works as a benefit-fraud investigator – to the delight of those wanting to see her cut down to size.
Only Corinna, her best friend of 20 years, seems happy to have Robin back. But when Corinna’s family is engulfed by violence and her missing husband becomes a murder suspect, Robin can’t bear to stand idly by as the police investigate. Can she trust them to find the truth of what happened? And why does it bother her so much that the officer in charge is her ex-boyfriend – the love of her teenage life?
As Robin launches her own unofficial investigation and realises there may be a link to the disappearance of a young woman, she starts to wonder how well we can really know the people we love – and how far any of us will go to protect our own.
(Taken from Goodreads)
MY THOUGHTS:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It had two main mysteries to be solved; the disappearance of Becca, a woman in her twenties and the murder of Corrina, Robin's best friend. What I loved was the desperation and strength of will in the character Robin. Here she was a single mother of a teenager who had worked hard not only to forge a career in the MET but also in raising her daughter single-handedly. Then through her decision to follow her own beliefs about a case is dismissed for misconduct. Finding herself unemployed she has no other choice but to head back to her childhood home with her tail between her legs.
Robin is offered a job with a family friend Maggie who works as a private investigator, as they are interviewing the mother of the missing woman news that Corrina has been murdered is filtered to them. Robin is determined to find out what happened to her childhood friend and to clear Corrina's husband of the murder. Having worked in the Homicide department of the MET you can truly understand how frustrated Robin is at not being able to work alongside the Birmingham police in solving this murder and putting the real murderer behind bars. At every step Robin is shut down in her own investigation causing more fractures between those closest to her. Whitehouse gives you a main character who is flawed, at her absolute lowest point, constantly making the wrong decisions and yet I couldn't help but like and admire her stubbornness and drive.
This novel genuinely kept me guessing throughout and I had no idea how it was going to end. The plot was cleverly written, the characters very relatable and I loved how connections were made to tie everything together. For me this was definitely the page turn I was hoping for and it felt very realistic. I will absolutely be looking out for future novels by Lucie Whitehouse and the sequel to Critical Incidents.
Many thanks to Midas and 4th Estate for inviting me to take part in the January Blog Tour and for introducing me to the author Lucie Whitehouse.
AUTHOR:
Lucie Whitehouse was born in 1975 and grew up in Warwickshire. After studying Classics at Oxford, she moved to London where she worked briefly in journalism before finding her niche in publishing. She is the author of four novels: The House at Midnight; the TV Book Club pick The Bed I Made; Before We Met, which was a Richard & Judy Summer Book Club and ITV Crime Thriller Book Club selection; and Keep You Close. Lucie now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.