Inspired by Christopher Marlowe’s play, Doctor Faustus, No Place to Hide explores the consequences of a bargain entered into with a fellow student many years before which turns out to be akin to a pact with the Devil of Marlowe’s play. Okay, so Adam doesn’t quite get twenty four years of ‘absolute knowledge and infinite power’ in exchange for his soul but he does get a successful career as a consultant paediatrician, untarnished by any whiff of scandal associated with the tragic event that occurred at a party whilst he was a medical student. Until, that it is, the person he entered into the agreement with decides it’s time to claim his prize.

Alternating between Adam’s time at college in 1998 and the present day, we get a keen sense of his increasing paranoia as he begins to believe he is being secretly filmed, and not just by someone with a camera, but by all the surveillence technology we see (or perhaps don’t see) around us. It puts a strain on his marriage, especially when the intrusion comes a little too close to home, threatening the safety of his young family as well as his career.

Having commenced with a theatrical performance – Adam’s starring role in Doctor Faustus – it’s fitting that the book’s closing scenes are full of melodrama. I liked how the author keeps Adam, and through him the reader, constantly unsure about who to trust. For instance, is Clio, the object of Adam’s unconsummated student lust, a willing accessory or an innocent pawn in a devilish game? This is particularly cleverly done when it comes to Ji, Adam’s friend from university who has progressed from video game addict to technology supremo.

The book’s equivalent of Hell is the so-called ‘dark web’ which turns out to be a very dark place indeed, the stuff of nightmares in fact. Adam’s adversary is not perhaps Marlowe’s Devil, the incarnation of pure evil, but a manipulative, damaged individual with demons of his own, and a very particular motive for tormenting Adam.

No Place to Hide is a skilfully crafted, thought-provoking thriller that is also an unsettling insight into the extent to which technology, and surveillence technology in particular, has become part of our everyday lives and the capacity for its misuse. Maybe you haven’t noticed how many security cameras there are in your high street or local shopping centre? You probably will after reading this.

‘You might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're not watching you.’ - cover tag line.

My thanks to Head of Zeus - Aria & Aries for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘No Place to Hide’ by J.S. Monroe.

This proved one of the best thrillers that I have read in a while. It’s a novel that I would suggest be read ‘cold’ for maximum enjoyment of its rollercoaster plot. Still, here’s a brief overview:

Adam Pound has the kind of life that is very familiar to readers of psychological and domestic thrillers. An apparently perfect life with a happy marriage, two young children, and a successful career as a paediatrician at a London hospital.

Yet Adam lives with a secret that dates back twenty-four years to 1998 during his first year as a medical student at Cambridge University. Something terrible had happened at a drunken party. Only two other people knew about it: Louis, an aspiring film-maker, and Clio, a fellow student that Adam had an unrequited crush on. Now Clio has strolled back into his life bringing havoc in her wake. No further details to avoid spoilers.

This was a terrific thriller moving smoothly between the past and present. At Cambridge Adam had been cast as the titular character in an university production of ‘Doctor Faustus’. Clio played Mephistopheles, Lucifer’s agent. Adam appears to be haunted by this role and the concept of selling one’s soul.

Monroe cleverly peppers his narrative with references including books and films that deal with pacts with the devil and Adam’s adversary Louis certainly gives off those kind of Luciferian vibes in both appearance and behaviour.

‘No Place to Hide’ has plenty of twists and turns and builds to a nerve-shattering climax at the Minack outdoor theatre during a stormy night on the Cornwall coast. The novel’s final scene also gave me goosebumps!

It was no surprise to read that Monroe has had a long career in journalism as his writing is very crisp. ‘No Place to Hide’ certainly packs a punch and proved an excellent read.

Highly recommend.

No Place to Hide by J S Monroe is a very complex thriller with many twists and turns, it isn’t until the end that all of the pieces come together and make some sort of sense.
The characters are also very complex and the reader is never really sure of who the villain, Louis really is and then there is Clio and the good doctor himself, did he really deliberately do what Louis accuses him of doing.
Avery complicated thriller that I read avidly waiting to found out what happened next.
Highly recommended book

This was a gripping and tense thriller which had me glued to my kindle. A book which had well developed characters, some nice and others not so nice. This was definitely a page turner with quite a few heart stopping moments throughout.

Wow. What a novel. Loved the Faustus parallels throughout and the way you never knew who you could trust.

Adam is paranoid, thinks everyone is watching him, that he is under constant surveillance but maybe he is…? At university as a medical undergraduate he played a the titular role in Dr Faustus and began an unhealthy relationship with the compelling Clio who introduced him to the toxic Louis Farr… Lucifer? Suspicious deaths, blackmail and deceit ensued. 24 years later, Adam is a successful paediatrician with a happy marriage and children of his own, Clio reappears to cash in…

Im a sucker for a great title...

No Place To Hide, would end up in my hands before I even read the back of the book.

There is no rhyme or reason on how I select books but I can tell you that whatever it is that I am doing has not failed me yet.

J.S. Monroe, knocked this one out of the park!

This book holds every key component to be a best seller.

Dark Web
Deceit
Murder

Check, Check and Check!

Jam packed with twists, you'll never want to put this book down once you start!

There is not one doubt in my mind that book lovers all around will fall in love with Monroe's writing style. I have definitely been made a fan.

Don't take my word for it, find out what all the buzz is about and head on over to your favorite bookstore to purchase this book!

Teaser:

You might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're not watching you.

Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers' mobile phones, city traffic cameras – he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a medical student.

Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he's long left behind. Until one of them, Clio – Adam's great unrequited love – turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making...

No Place to Hide is a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together the dark web, murder, and blackmail...

Adam is paranoid. Or are they watching? The cameras are everywhere. But Adam is a pediatrician with a wife and 2 kids. Why would anyone want to watch him? Sure, his life isn’t as great as it seems from the outside right now. His marriage is tense and falling apart. It isn’t helped when an old crush from college randomly finds his lost son in the park. Did she find him? Or take him?

The story then rewinds back to his days in school as we slowly learn just why he has such an obsession with cameras. Every time a new memory ends, we get a little better understanding. That doesn’t mean that all is what it seems. The whole thing takes a really dark turn in the end. Just ramps up as it goes until there is no where else to go but face the past head on.

An excellent suspense read I found totally gripping which I could not put down. The storyline was well thought through and in my view was brilliant. Wonderful to follow the two stories interlacing one another. I could not second guess at all throughout the whole book. Superb!

An entertaining read, some parts were a little far fetched but the technology side did have a ring of truth, even if I really didn’t want to believe it! Just who is watching you? And all this technology we have around us, just what access does it give to other people to monitor what we are doing.? The book was written in two timelines which worked well and built the excitement and the tension.

One the surface the main character is a normal guy, Adam who works as a paediatric doctor and is happily married. Adam’s slightly obsession with cameras and CCTV is strange and the significance of his growing paranoia becomes justified. This book is narrated from the present to 20 years in the past and the tale knits and weaves into a clever suspenseful thriller with Clio emerging from his student days. A clever and satisfying read.

If you asked me at the start of the book, what would I rate it, it wouldn’t be 4 stars, however, the middle and the ending really pulled the everything in the book together for me.
The beginning was such a slow burn, with way too many hints and too little explanations. The book is split into 2 different time frames, 1998 and 2022. Adam, the main character, is a doctor living in London, juggling family life and his career. In 1998, he was studying medicine at Cambridge, and the story flicks between his student life and his life now.
Mysterious things happened at Cambridge and now Adam must suffer, 24 years later.

What I liked about this book was the adrenaline pumping end, and the characters, even though some were dislikable. The author wrote the characters well, and gave us a few surprises along the way. The end of the book will have you on the edge of your seat, second guessing every motive and every character.

What I didn’t like was the beginning, it took a little too long to become a thriller for me and I found it a bit tiresome. I also didn’t like the Dr Faustus references, mainly because I had no idea about it, but it was relevant to the ending.

I absolutely loved this book! I read it so fast because I could not put it down and my heart was pounding! I highly recommend this one

Adam has it all - blissful family life and is a successful doctor.
However his past secrets as a medical student come back to haunt him.
He becomes paranoid, convinced he is being watched by every CCTV camera in the city.
A bit of a slow burner but keeps your interest because you want to know what happened.
Love the premise of how technology can be used against you - i.e. hacking, the black web - it’s truly scary.
A top psychological thriller for 2023
Thanks JS Monroe, Aries Fiction & Netgalley for the advanced preview copy

From the outside, successful paediatrician Adam appears to have an idyllic life. He has a beautiful wife, and two young children, and they seem to live a contented existence in south London next to the wide open space of Greenwich Park. But Adam hides a secret about a tragedy that happened during his time as a medical student: a secret that makes him afraid he is being watched all the time, and the surveillance society that surrounds him feeds his paranoia.

Only two other people know what happened all those years ago, and when one of them walks back into his life 24 years later, he is sure it cannot be a coincidence. The arrival of Clio, the woman he was once obsessed with, heralds a series of increasingly worrying events that threaten to derail Adam's life... and to put him and his family in danger.

This is one of those psychological thrillers that plays on your worst nightmares, and it gripped me from unsettling start to breathtaking ending. Adam is a man who has made mistakes and these come back to bite him in sinister style. I cannot give too much away here, as it would spoil the beautifully crafted surprises that Monroe floors you with, but as the story flips back and forth between the present and 1998 when the fateful events of Adam's past are revealed, the terrifying pieces of the mystery come together in a way that chills you to the core. 

Intriguingly, Monroe takes the theme of Christopher Marlowe's tragic play Doctor Faustus, in which Clio and Adam play opposite each other in the most prophetic of ways as a temptress Mephistopheles and a foolish Faustus during a university production, and runs headlong into a timely scenario that scares the wits out of you. Adam has a very good reason to fear being spied upon, and his Faustian devil employs every technological trick, from spying software to the horrifying activities of the underbelly of the Dark Web, to give this morality tale a very modern twist.

At times, Adam's head is an uncomfortable place to be, but somehow his fight to redeem himself and protect his family gets under your skin, and by the time you reach the final stages of the story you are very much on his side. Clio is a totured enigma for almost the whole story, which adds delicious suspense, and allows Monroe to create a very satisfying twist and twist again ending on the wild clifftops in Cornwall that makes your heart race. My favourite character was Adam's friend Ji, who proves to be a valuable asset to have in his corner, and who adds some much needed comic touches to lighten the darkness.

I consumed this book in a single feverish sitting, unable to look away for a second. I have not read anything by J.S. Monroe before, but will certainly be looking out for more of his thrillers in the future!

No Place to Hide by J.S. Monroe is a psychological thriller about a man with a past that is coming back to bite him.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Aria & Aries - Head of Zeus 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.


My Synopsis:    (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Adam Pound is a pediatrician, is happily married to Tania, and has two small children.  But Adam is a little paranoid, convinced he is being watched.  By every camera in the city.  The CCTV cameras in the hospital, the city traffic cameras, cell phone users....

When Clio, a woman he fell for in university turns up under strange circumstances, he's even more anxious.

Perhaps Adam is right to be concerned.  After all, 24 years ago, something awful happened at a party he was at.  And Clio is one of two other people that know what happened.  Then there's the fact that he may have made a deal with the devil to keep his secret safe.


My Opinions:
This was an intricately woven tale, told in two time-lines, which worked well.  It did, however, move very slowly, as the suspense built, and then it was quite good.

It was rather creepy, and I'm not sure I liked ANY of the characters.  The baby was fine, but Freddie should have been old enough to know about stranger-danger.  Tania was a little wishy-washy, and Clio....well, I think she just needed psychiatric help.  Louis, of course, was evil, and Adam came across as rather full of himself.  I wish Ji had played a bigger role in the book. He was probably the most interesting.

The book was about technology, and how software today can be used against you.  But I think, more importantly, it is about secrets, and trust.  I liked the references to the Elizabethan play about Dr. Faustus, as well as MacDougall's weight of a soul experiment.

Overall, the writing was good, and the actual plot was very good.  As well, although I did see a couple of the twists coming, I was definitely surprised by one!


For a more complete review of this book and others, (including the reason I chose to read/review this book, as well as author information and contact details), please visit my blog: http://katlovesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

Prepare to be hooked!
This is the first book by J.S. Monroe I read and after a slow start, it kept me on the edge of my seat up to the end. The tension was building up, as were my feelings of dread…very clever plot along the lines of Dr. Faustus combined with many absolutely unexpected twists make this a fascinating read.

A really good story wherr you arr on the edge of your seat with tension trying to work out what is happening. Is Adam dasdelusional as he sounds?

A young medical student at Cambridge desperately trying to integrate with the cleverer and wealthy. . Desperately he believes his access to the inner circle is through Cleo, the most beautiful and sought after although every instinct screams dangerous to know. Ignoring warnings, attendance at a wild drug fuelled party where a tragedy occurs leaving him guilty, confused and open to blackmail. Two decades later now a successful doctor and family man the past is resurrected dragging him Into the worst imaginable nightmare. Nothing as it seems and no one to be trusted. His past is back to haunt him. Written in two time frames, often gripping and terrifying is the reality that cameras are everywhere and nothing can be hidden:. On occasion, for the reader , lurks the frustration that an incredibly intelligent character can often act with such stupidity. The premise of true evil, the black web and technological advances suggests everyone and everything is under total surveillance. This leads to a compelling conclusion if somewhat implausible and infeasible. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for ARC.

I’ve really enjoyed J.S. Monroe’s previous books and so I turned to this one with some excitement and anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed. Monroe has a strong flair for capturing a distinctive crime that you won’t easily forget and then building a novel around it that has the reader questioning and second guessing the plot all the way down the line.

No Place to Hide is full of secrets. It is a dual timeline story, with the past informing the present as Monroe cleverly spools out the whole story of what went before to stun us with the rationale for what is happening in the present.

His use of current technology adds a real present danger threat to what is already a clever, twisty and suspenseful psychological thriller.

Adam Pound is a paediatrician. Married to Tania, he has two young children and his life feels solid and secure; his happiness complete. But there’s a shadow in his past and though he has done a lot to bury that shadow it has never quite disappeared.

He has a visceral fear of being filmed and is markedly uncomfortable when a CCTV camera appears at the bottom of his street.

Things escalate in Adam’s life when a lost love appears suddenly. Clio was at University with Adam and they acted together in a student production of Faustus. Adam thought he and Clio could have meant something to each other, but Clio was in tow with another guy named Louis. Louis was a keen filmmaker and despite being warned that he was not a good guy, Adam consented to being filmed for a series Louis was making around the theme of ‘A Day in the Life of…’

What happened and how it came about is threaded through the book and none of it makes a complete story until we get right to the end. But the theme of a Faustian pact and Mephistophilian behaviour leave us wondering whether Adam’s Faustus will end up more like Marlowe’s Faust than Goethe’s.

As Clio suddenly re-enters his life over 20 years later, so Adam’s life takes a decidedly darker tone. He starts to worry for the safety and security of his family and soon his life is entering a downward spiral from which it seems there is no escape. His work and his family seem to be under threat and he is growing increasingly paranoid, constantly feeling that he is under surveillance.

Adam doesn’t know who he can trust. Tania, sensing that he is holding back, has taken the children way and his sense of paranoia is growing exponentially. Monroe brings a real sense of darkness and claustrophobia to events and leaves the reader wondering if Adam is a reliable narrator, or if that strong sense of building dread is going to result in something truly catastrophic. There are some beautifully dramatic settings in this novel, including a beautifully played out scene at the open air Minack Theatre in Porthcurno, Cornwall.

As matters come to a head, Adam is in a battle for both his life and his soul without knowing who, if anyone, he can trust.

Verdict: No Place to Hide is an atmospheric and intelligent novel with a tangible sense of dread as this twisted and shocking book brings everything to a head. Nicely plotted and very twisty, Monroe weaves in the dangers of new technology together with the open sewer that is the dark web, to bring us a truly shocking, nightmarish novel that shows how easy it is to destroy lives at the press of a button. No Place to Hide starts out slowly and gains pace, building to a twisted crescendo that leaves the reader shocked and breathless.