Did not receive/read in time due to technical error on kindle/tablet. Not having left feedback has due to error has impacted my shelves. Leaving 4 stars.

Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher is ready for a vacation. She and her daughter, Stella, head to Lorraine's home village to stay for the week with her sister, Jo and Jo's son, Freddie. Jo's husband, Malcolm, works and stays in London during the week and Lorraine's husband, Adam, is also in the police and working this week so the two sisters plan for a week together to renew old ties.

But Lorraine's visit isn't as relaxing as she'd hoped. Eighteen months ago, the village had been shaken by a series of six teenage suicides, including the son of Jo's best friend in the village. Freddie has been withdrawn since then, spending most of his time in his room and far from the outgoing teenager he had been previously. Jo is worried about him, even more so since she and Malcolm have just split up.

Then things seem to be starting again. One boy, Dean, seems to have committed suicide by driving a stolen motorbike into a tree. Another, Lenny, is found dead on the railroad tracks. Each left a note behind. Then Freddie goes missing. Lorraine is desperate to help her sister find Freddie and to insure that the other boys' deaths have been investigated properly.

Samantha Hayes genre is psychological thrillers, based on family situations. There are always twists and turns but the reader can imagine the events actually happening to them or someone they know. This book is no different. Marriage breakups and moody teenagers are normal although frightening to those going through them and teenage suicide is a crisis in many countries. Readers will be interested in how the events play out and what the solution will be. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

This had been on my NetGalley shelf for a long time. For whatever reason, I never got around to reading it till now. While the premise - a spate of teenage suicides in a rural area - is potentially intriguing, unfortunately this story didn’t really grab me at all. I couldn’t engage with the characters - indeed I could barely remember who they were or what was happening even while I was reading. To be fair, this may have been partly down to my slightly distracted frame of mind.

Any hope of me engaging with the story was scuppered by the “autistic” character, Gil, who was very unconvincing (and quite offensive to be honest), particularly as some sections are written in his “voice”, which is uncomfortable to read. This character didn’t work for me at all and did not present like someone with autism, although he is obviously intended to have a learning disability of some kind. Indeed, his portrayal (and voice) was inconsistent depending on what served the plot.

I have enjoyed other books by Samantha Hayes, but unfortunately this one didn’t really work for me.

Great British police procedural book! Kept me guessing until the end due to so many unexpected twists in the plot! Thought I guessed it but definitely did not! Highly recommend!

I don't remember reading this but upon reviewing my goodreads history, I gave it one star back in 2014.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Two years after a terrifying spate of teenage suicides, the remote village of Radcote has just begun to heal. Then a young man is killed in a freak motorcycle accident and a suicide note is found among his belongings. When a second boy is found dead shortly thereafter, the nightmare of repeat suicides once again threatens the community.
Desperate for a vacation, Detective Inspector Lorraine Fisher has just come to Radcote for a stay with her sister, Jo, but the atmosphere of the country house is unusually tense. Freddie, Jo's son, seems troubled and uncommunicative, and Jo is struggling to reach out to him. Meanwhile, Lorraine becomes determined to discover the truth behind these deaths. Are they suicides, or is there something more sinister at work? Finding answers might help Freddie, but they'll also lead to a shocking truth: whatever it is--or whoever it is--that's killing these young people is far more disturbing than she ever could have imagined, and unraveling the secret is just as dangerous as the secret itself.

This is the second Lorraine Fisher novel. I haven't read the first one and, from all reports, I missed out on the better of the two stories.

This one never really got moving for me. While I appreciated the build-up and set-up, it seemed to take an extraordinary length of time before the actual investigation truly began.

The biggest letdown for me were the characters. Very hard to have a decent mystery novel with half-baked characters or ones developed only to the point that they are necessary and no more. The only exception to that would be Lorraine - as you would hope.

I am sure there is plenty of good to come from Samantha Hayes in this series. This just didn't quite get there.


Paul
ARH

Not as readable as Until You're Mine. I struggled with this one. Slow to get into . Perhaps I set myself up for something way better based on my previous experience of the author.