Published By: HQ
Pages: 384
Released On: 30/01/2025
1994: When Gardaí Julia Harte and Adrian Clancy are called out to a sleepy housing estate in Cork to investigate a noise complaint, they are entirely unprepared for what they find. What happens next will haunt Julia for the rest of her days, leaving her plagued with nightmares and terrified of the dark. There is a serial killer at work in Cork, one as clever as he is deadly. Julia may not be a detective yet, but after the harrowing events of that night, she is determined to be the one to catch him…
2024: Julia Harte has chosen just the right place to disappear. Now a retired detective with an illustrious career behind her, she has moved to a tiny cottage in a remote part of Ireland where she hopes to find peace. But then she receives a phone call from her old Superintendent – two women have been murdered, their bodies marked and staged, just like in ’94.
It’s happening again. Only this time, the stakes are even higher. Julia must return to Cork to face down a vicious killer and the memories that haunt her still. Yet Julia is no longer a naïve junior officer but a seasoned, tough professional who proves more than a match for any murderer…
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I do love a thriller set over two time periods. Each one is delectable in itself but work well to explain what is happening in the other. It’s split between 1994 and 2024, and Amy has done a really good job of making them very separate but kept enough links in them not to be two different stories. Normally in books like this, I prefer one time period to another, and I did give it some thought but for once, I think they were actually of equal merit. I got something different out of each time period, and yet it also gave me a chance to get to know these characters over a 30 year period.
She has pitched the location perfectly to show this sense of isolation and claustrophobia which adds to the tension of the story.
I have a funny thing with accents, as soon as I hear one, all my thoughts then get spoke in that accent. Which is often funny, except for when we went to see my Dad after he’d passed and one of the nurses had a really strong Scottish accent, and I couldn’t help but giggle at his voice in my head. Anyway, moving on, knowing the characters in this were Irish, I kept reading it in that way. I don’t know if it’s important to this review but it made me smile so thought I’d note it down anyway. But I think reading it in the accent it’s meant to be spoken in really helped me connect to the characters more.
I have read a lot of thrillers and crime novels in my time and there was something about this, something so accomplished that it reminded me of traditional crime novels, a proper thriller. But it still had something a little different to set it apart from the other thrillers out there.
I read it in less than a day it was so addictive. It ends satisfyingly enough but I hope she might revisit these characters again because I can definitely see scope for more stories, and if they’re as good as this one then it’ll be a treat.
I say this about every thriller I read and I will repeat it again because it’s still true. Thrillers are probably my most read genre, and so you would think I’d have learnt how to read between the lines adn work out the reveal by now, but I never do. It’s so frustrating but impressive at the same time. I guessed a couple of things in this but not the big reveal and so I commend her for that.
It was well paced; quick enough to be enticing and exciting but not rushed, but slow enough to give the reader time to get invested without it being boring.
I thought this was her debut novel, but after some Googling I have come across some previous novels written under a different name. But still, this is her debut novel as Amy Jordan and so I will continue to see it as a debut., in a way. And what a story it was.
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