Excellent psychological thriller! It moved at a fast pace with twists and turns throughout! Well-developed characters and plot. Highly recommend!

I received a free copy of The Night Caller from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book!
It's so much more than a detective crime thriller.

This story is about relationships. It's about hidden feelings and desires. It's about overcoming frustrations, dark and negative thoughts.

You know those hidden feelings and emotions that we all have? Those secret and deep thoughts? Thoughts and feelings that may be taboo, shameful, outrageous? This story is about all those feelings.

This book wakes you up and makes you realise that people are all the same, yet unique in their way of thinking and feeling.

It is such a wonderful start to an amazing series.

I will happily recommend this book!

Thanks to Bookouture for my copy of this book via netgalley.

Sadly I didn't gel with this one. For me, the whole book was a slog. I couldn't connect with the characters.

The book was more focused on the victim's friends and family than the police work. I personally prefer seeing more of the police work. I would say this was more of a psychological thriller than a police procedural.

In the blurb, there is more about Carrie and her background than there probably is in the book. It would have been nice to see more of this in the story and to expand on Carrie's background. This is barely mentioned in the book except for a paragraph or two at the very end. Carrie is very cold and difficult to identify with. She seems to keep herself very private from everyone she works with and doesn't seem to know anything about her colleagues.

The twist was really obvious to me from quite early on as well which again made it difficult to read as I had nothing to keep me hooked.

The story is well written but it just wasn't for me. I really wanted to like this one as I love a detective series but I just couldn't enjoy it.

I have just finished this book, and my body is still very tense -I wonder how long that tension will stay there? This was certainly a psychological thriller and my heart was in my mouth, more than once.

Emma's son Jordan goes missing - but Jordan is an enigma and it is up to Carrie and Paul to figure out what the story is with him and who is responsible for the murders of a dozen people, all pushed into the canals of Manchester.

Now, I have never been to Manchester, but I can imagine when it is dark and cold, that the canals might be a very different place than when it is sunny and there are lots of people around. Just the thought of landing in a canal, fully clothed, in the middle of winter and without a way to get out of it, fills me with horror.

The author did a good job of layering on the tension. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series and finding out a little more about Carrie's past and what exactly happened with her sister and her mother.

4.5 stars from me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture.

This was a pretty good fast paced thriller. I enjoy these detective books a lot and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It was a little predictable at times but still worth the read.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to Bookouture for an eARC via NetGalley of J.M. Hewitt’s ‘The Night Caller’ in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first in a series of crime thrillers set in Manchester featuring D.S. Carrie Flynn. For the past six years a serial killer known as The Pusher has murdered twelve men by literally pushing them into canals around Salford.

D.S. Carrie Flynn has been very invested in this case and believes that there has actually been two Pushers, due to a change in victimology. When there is a report of another young man falling into a local canal Carrie and her partner, D.C. Paul Harper, are keen to interview witnesses. However, the body hasn’t been recovered yet.

I had expected this to be a standard police procedural with emphasis upon the investigation and forensics but a greater part of the novel focused on Emma Robinson, whose son Jordan is the latest victim. Emma appears to have little confidence in the police and acts very erratically. Carrie and Paul Harper were naturally frustrated with Emma’s lack of cooperation and I was in full sympathy.

Aside from her being naturally frantic about Jordan Emma’s relationship with neighbour and surrogate daughter, Jade, was also a big part of the narrative. For me, this made the novel more of a domestic drama.

I found that I wasn’t very invested in Emma. I fared somewhat better with Jade though she too was capable at times of making me want to shake some sense into her.

While it was a perfectly readable novel, I just wanted more Carrie and Paul investigation and less kitchen sink realism.

Hewitt did a very good job of capturing her setting, especially the canal network, which was certainly a plus.

I am interested in reading future books featuring Carrie Flynn and Paul Harper.

D.S Carrie Flynn and D.C Paul Harper are trying to solve the killings of twelve men pushed into the canals of Manchester . Carrie believes that the first pusher ( as called) has been taken over by the second pusher. They can’t seem to get a break. That is till Jordan a young man gets pushed in but his body is not found. His mother Emma searches the canals nightly in hope of finding her son or the pusher. There are plenty of secrets about Jordan but also his mother and neighbour jade are hiding secrets too.
Thanks Netgalley

A police procedural to begin with, the story soon led me down the twists of a thriller. The first in the series where Detective Carrie Flynn was at the helm of the investigation.

The Pusher, a killer who pushed his victims into the canal, was plaguing the land, and it was up to Carrie to find him before the body count rose up. This case started with finding Jordan's scarf near the canal, and the Pusher was thought to be at play.

A debut by J. M. Hewitt where after the initial few pages, I got mighty engrossed in the story that kept unfolding in each chapter, to reveal the furtive nature of the characters. The book read extremely fast, 2 hours hands down.

I thought I would be getting a solid investigative story with forensics and cop talk. But what I got was an implosion of a thriller which sucked me in. Wow. The author soon turned the story around, weaving the scenes of the investigation into the lives of Emma and son Jordan, who was missing, neighbor Jade and daughter Nia.

All these characters were hiding deep, dark secrets. And it was upto Carrie and her partner Paul to get to them. I could understand why she got frustrated with them. I too had to read at double speed to force them to tell their secrets. Some I could guess. As told before, my thrillers have made me a good Detective. Still waiting for my badge.

A tiny niggle popped up. Carrie and her backstory were not shown in detail which probably would be shown later in the series as there was a lost sister in her past. The blurb was slightly misleading. This was more of a thriller, hence my excitement was doubled.

A fast paced thriller more than a police procedural which had my heart thumping with joy.

The Night Caller by J.M. Hewitt is the first in the Detective Carrie Flynn series.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Bookouture, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
  

Series Background:    

DS Carrie Flynn lost her sister when she was a child.  Hattie was abducted, and never found.  Their mother has spent the last two decades in a nursing home, not speaking, not really there.  Carrie spent that time in foster care.  She has become a very independent woman, who doesn't really let people in.  She needs to be in control at all times, so stays away from booze and drugs.  She is partnered with DC Paul Harper.


My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)

Emma Robinson goes a little crazy when her 19-year old son Jordan goes missing, presumed drowned in the canal.  His body has not yet been found.   Some think he jumped.  Some think he was pushed.  Maybe he is still alive.  Maybe his father, never in the picture, had something to do with it.  Emma will do whatever she can to find her son.

Jade and her 4 year old daughter Nia live next door to Emma, but are more family than neighbours, so Jade is trying to do everything she can to support her friend.

There have been a dozen canal deaths over 6 years attributed to "The Pusher".  DS Carrie Flynn thinks the "new" pusher killed Jordan.   She is sure that a second pusher materialized a little while ago, after he/she killed the first one.  Carrie has no proof, but the victims changed.  The victims of the first pusher were all gays.  The victims now are drug dealers, pimps, abusers, and others with questionable behaviours....people that may deserve punishment.  However,  if Jordan was pushed, what was he hiding...why did he need to be punished?  And why does it seem that he has no friends, and his family seems not to know him at all?  What are they hiding?


My Opinions:  

This book is about secrets, and denial, and family and love.  It is also about mental health and control.

I did figure out who the killer was, and anticipated the ending, but it was still done well.

The writing is good, the plot was interesting, and most of the characters were good (I actually loved Mrs. Oberman).  However, my problem was with the protagonist.  The author did not give us enough background information to make Carrie likable.  She was rather boring.  I learned more about her from the book blurb, than I did from the book.  The book actually centered more around the family in crisis than it did around Carrie, or police procedures, which is fine, but it just seemed odd for such a series.

This book was okay, and only the first in the series, so I am looking forward to seeing if the author will step up her game.  I hope so. There was nothing wrong with the book, it just lacked the thrill, for me anyway.

I was looking forward to reading this book being book one of a new series. But I am sorry to say I was a little disappointed. I thought the story was going to be more police procedural but it wasn’t. It was more focused on Emma and Jade neighbours and best friends. Secrets they have.

There is a serial killer on the loose called The Pusher mainly because bodies get pushed into the canal. Emma’s son goes missing one night and she had warned him not to walk by the canal alone. When she is watching the news later she spots his scarf tied to a railing near the canal and is convinced he is The Pushers latest victim. As people had said they had seen him there one minute then heard a splash and he was gone. Did he go into the canal? What are the secrets being held.

This was more of a psychological thriller so if that’s what you enjoy then you will like this book. The book goes from one character to the other but staying as day one or two or three etc. Which at first I found confusing.

Unfortunately I guessed what was happening before I had finished the book. A good start to a new series though. I hope in future we see more of Carrie.

Detective Carrie Flynn #1

There is a serial killer in Manchester who is pushing unwitting males into the canal. So far, there have been twelve deaths over the last six years. DS Carrie Flynn and DC Paul Harper are now investigating. Then Emma's son, Jordan goes missing. Is he the latest victim? Carrie has personal demons.

This story was not what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be based around the serial killer but it was more about Emma and her next door neighbour, Jade. Both women are hiding secrets. There is no a lot we learn about the detectives that are investigating this case. That said, I was still hooked even though I did work out where the story was going. This never spoils a story for me. There are plenty twists and turns to keep you guessing. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Bookouture and the author J.M. Hewitt for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The first book in a new series featuring Carrie Flynn.

Although this is a police thriller this book was different as a lot of the plot focused on the victims family.

I did guess some of the twists but it didn't take away from the story in any way.

I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to reading more about Carrie and her team in future books.

He's known as The Pusher. He's taken a dozen victims over the course of six years. He's left nary a clue, no DNA, he's like a ghost, a whisper in the wind.

Detective Carrie Flynn has not given up looking for this killer. But something has changed. The victims lifestyles were targeted for awhile, now it looks like anyone who was considered a 'bad boy' are being killed.

There's another missing person .. a 19-year-old teenager. He was seen around the river and people heard a splash ... but his body has never been found.

His mother is in denial that her only son is dead. Detective Flynn feels that the mother is hiding something. The same for her neighbor, a young woman who the mother is very close to. She, also, seems to not tell everything she knows.

Throw in the boy's father, whom he's never met, and another young man, who claims to have been in a relationship with him, and a nosy old neighbor woman, who sees more than she tells and you have the makings of a real page turner.

This was a little bit of a slow start for me. The story line had me believing this was more about the family of the man who disappeared, and less about the crimes committed. Once it picked up, the suspense soared.

Many thanks to the author /Bookouture / Netgalley. I received a digital copy of this crime fiction at no charge, I am leaving this review voluntarily. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

The Night Caller put me through multiple emotions. Overall I loved the storyline. You don't get to connect very much with each character but you still feel connected at the same time. You are left with several questions about each character until the end when all the answers and twists are reveal. I felt like there were too many questions but I still enjoyed it.

This is the first in what I hope will be a new series.
It’s a bit of a different crime thriller as the main focus is on the family and friends of the missing person, and there’s not much about the Detectives investigating the case.
Carrie and Paul seem to be secondary to the storyline, even though they’re investigating the missing person case.
I was hooked by the story though and whilst I’d worked out part of it, it didn’t spoil it for me.
Emma is distraught when her son goes missing and her close friendship with her neighbour, Jade is soon put under strain.
I’m intrigued to learn more about Carrie’s story so hope there will be more books in this series.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This is so much more than a crime thriller
This is a most unusual police procedural book. I had worked out where the book was going but this wasn’t a huge disappointment
All in all I found this to be a very sad story
Can’t wait to read the next instalment

This an extremely atmospheric book, with lots of angles to it. The prologue is a creepy insight into the night time activities which are the focus of the police investigation throughout the book. 'The Pusher' is someone who is targeting young men and pushing them into the murky depths of the canals around Manchester but his MO seems to have changed from the first victims compared to later ones. Can troubled detective Carrie Flynn and her colleague Paul Harper find the perpetrator before he claims another life? Carrie believes she saw the man on the opposite side of the canal watching events unfold as one of his victims is retrieved from the water however he mysteriously vanishes into the night leaving her chasing shadows.

Interestingly the detectives are not the main storyline here - obviously the crime investigation takes up a big thread of the story but the spotlight falls far more onto victim's mum Emma Robinson and her neighbour Jade, their mutual history and their neighbourhood. Emma's son Jordan has gone missing, the latest suspected victim of The Pusher. His body has yet to be found, which is the anomaly in the investigation. All the others have been found within hours of their disappearance but he remains missing days later.

The story looks into missing Jordan's life, his friends - or lack of them - and the people closest to him. Carrie is convinced his mother is holding back information, but is it more the case that she never really knew her son at all? Nobody really seems to 'know' him, only the persona he creates at a given time. He is a character with more hidden depths than the dark, cold waters the police are searching for him in.

I was totally drawn into the chilling, dark atmosphere of this book and although I had my suspicions about the conclusion of the book virtually from the start, the author takes us on an exceptional journey to reach that end. Suspicions fall on a few people along the way, and I particularly liked the character of nosy, judgmental character Mrs Oberman who has a starring role all of her own in this novel which makes the reader think about just how well we really know anyone at all.

I will certainly be looking out for more of this author's work in future.

Although identified as a crime thriller, this is so much more than that. This narrative speaks of bonds, whether familial or otherwise, and the connections between people that allow for secrets even kept from ourselves.

What it's about: There is a serial killer afoot in Manchester. He (or she) pushes unwitting males into the canal. There have been 12 such deaths over the last six years. DS Carrie Flynn and her partner, DC Paul Harper, have the notion that the original "Pusher" has been replaced by a new killer as the victimology has changed. They are getting nowhere when Emma's son, Jordan, goes missing. Although he appears to be another victim of "the Pusher", his body is not recovered. His mother, Emma, and her best friend and next door neighbor, Jade, walk the canals and are desperate to find his body. But the two women are holding some very close secrets and the police cannot penetrate their silence nor find any clues to solve the crime. Bit by bit the revelations come and it is obvious that no one really knew Jordan at all. NO SPOILERS

Why you should read it: This is a most unusual police procedural as the titular main character of DS Carrie Flynn does not have the most major role in the book. Emma and Jade are the focus of the story and their relationship with Jordan propels the plot. I am not sure who Carrie is really or what she's about but I understand that something bad happened to her that has affected her life. I'd definitely like to have future books in this series focus more on her and less on other characters as she's an enigma and virtually unknown at this point. Although the narrative meanders and the clues are dropped at specific points, I knew where this was going long before the big reveal. That wasn't a problem for me in that I enjoy seeing how the author reaches the conclusion. All in all, though, I found this to be a very sad story and I felt quite a bit of empathy for their loss in that mothers tend to see the best in their children while ignoring the serious red flags. "Take the blinders off!" I yelled to no avail. I'm wondering where this series will go next and definitely want to read the next book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review.
Note: Despite the synopsis given, there is really NOTHING in this book about the disappearance of Carrie's sister or anything from her past.

The Night Caller is the first book in the Carrie Flynn series by J M Hewitt however it is not your normal detective or police thriller.

The story doesn't centre on Flynn but on the family of who is thought to be the latest victim of the canal pusher. This makes for a slightly strange dynamic especially for what is supposed to be a series of books.

The story itself is ok with few twists and I did work out the whodunnit part quite early on.

There does seem to definite scope for further enhancement of the main series characters in the subsequent books and whilst this book was ok I will give the next one a go

Detective Carrie Flynn has spent twenty years searching for her little sister, who was kidnapped and never found. Carrie was with Hattie on that hot summer day – she saw her sister’s abductor, but she was just a young girl herself, and remembers nothing. She’s never forgiven herself for letting Hattie down.
When the chance came to join the police force, Carrie didn’t hesitate, wanting to ensure that no more little girls grew up alone. Now she is facing her toughest case yet: Jordan Robinson, a quiet and bright young man, has disappeared by the canal on a cold winter’s night. Witnesses heard a splash, but Carrie hasn’t found his body. She knows the first days are vital to find a missing person, and time is running out.
The disappearance of Jordan Robinson takes center stage in the first DS Carrie Flynn series. Her own sister's disappearance, while discussed heavily in the description of the book, is mentioned only briefly in the novel itself. I had literally forgotten the past case while reading the novel, and only when looking back over the description did I see that it had been such an important factor for Carrie's development. The novel focused mainly on the myriad characters surrounding Jordan Robinson, rather than on Carrie herself, and it would have been a good stand-alone for that reason. I am curious how the next book or books will fall into the series, as we don't know that much more about Carrie than we did when the first novel started, and we don't have a lot invested into her story at this point.
Aside from that, I was really turned off by the sheer stupidity and inability to empathize with the characters that were central to this plot. The mother was unable to focus on reality and put herself in situations that were completely implausible. Grief works in different ways in different people but the character's actions were just not believable. The relationships between the different members of the group were similarly disconcerting.
I was able to discern the "whodunit" aspect of the novel within the first few chapters, as a result there were no plot twists that entertained the reader or led to the aha feeling later in the novel.
With all of that being said, I did enjoy the book for the most part, once I could get past certain characters' reactions and personalities. I wish we had focused more on Carrie Flynn and less on Jordan Robinson's family, as she will be carried on through the season and ostensibly, his arc is over. I will probably read the next entry in the series, and see if Carrie's character is given the attention she deserves. It's worth a read, but I'm hoping for some growth in the next book.
I was provided an ARC through Netgalley and the publisher and am submitting my honest review of this author's work.