It Was Her

I got this book yesterday and it would have been finished yesterday too if it wasn’t for annoying stuff like work and people.

As it was I polished it off today because very like His First Lie (which I will always remember fondly as The Two O’Clock Boy) it has a beautifully emotional addictive layer to the writing which means honestly you just don’t want to put it down. So we enter once more into the murky world of Ray Drake and all his secrets, which are about to come back to bite him – at the same time bodies are turning up all over the place and another fractured family holds the key to the truth..

Honestly for me the engagement with this novel and the previous one comes mostly in the form of the aforementioned Ray Drake – A detective with issues unlike any other, who is darkly dangerous and endlessly fascinating. His partner in crime, Flick, who now knows more about him than he would like, is also a really great character and the relationship between these two is cleverly captivating, I’m in it all the way with these two.

As for the mystery element here it is really great, we have several character arc’s which keep the story twisting and turning to it’s ultimate conclusion and it is utterly gripping all the way through. It’s slightly shivery to think that people might invade your property whilst you are off on your hols, but the consequences of coming back early are fatal for a few. The best thing about it is the depth of feeling Mark Hill gives to both character and action, not only of victims but of the suspects, this had a great past/present vibe that worked beautifully and kept things obscure and unknown. The best crime comes from the shades of grey, not always just good guys nor bad, but victims of their own circumstances at times – this is an area in fiction where Mark excels, it’s all there just below the surface.

Overall another brilliant brilliant read. It’s possible I like Mark’s books more than I like him 😉

Intelligent writing, divisive and deliciously troubled characters, a totally compelling story, It Was Her comes highly recommended from me.

Ray Drake is one of my favorite detectives. This man has so much depth, you just want to keep reading more about him!

Again, Mark Hill did a superb job with this story. His writing style is very engaging and the book is full of tense moments. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a good thriller and has the time to finish it in one go. Because trust me, you will not want to put this down

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Ray and Flick are back on the case of murdered homeowners in a brutal way. There's the issue of Flick having witnessed Ray's in involvement in their last case. Ray is left wondering if Flick will bring him down as she knows his past. Can they work together to solve the case?

This in my opinion was better than the first one but I think this was down to knowing the characters. Can't wait for book 3!

After reading his first book, His First Lie, I couldn't wait to read his next book, It Was Her. It did not dissappoint and was well worth the wait.

Mark Hill has a rather elegant style of writing. When he describes a room you can practically feel the breeze he describes or hear the blinds hitting the sill of a window because of a loud old wall ac. I have always hated when writers over describe (The apple looked luscious and ripe like an old whore with red gums and the white pith like her hair.), but Mark does it right, and other writers could learn from him. You know you will reread his books again and again not just for the wonderful writing, but also for his ability to tell a great story

He brings each character to life, each with their own backstory. There are quite a few carried over from his first book, His First Lie, and I loved seeing them back again.

I also loved the minor characters, Douglas and Bailey. I thought of them as Freddy and Stuart in the tv series Vicious. And I particularly loved the little bomb that was dropped at that chapter's oh my ending.

There are several stories going on within the book and the author connects them all so skillfully. So many devious plots. Which makes me wonder how he comes up with them? Mark Hill looks like such a nice man. It's like he's that nice neighbor who always loans you his tools and never complains when you don't return them. But later you find out when you're carted away by police that they've been used in a crime.

If you haven't read his first book, do so. Myself, I cannot wait for more DI Ray Drake. And why this hasn't been made into a tv series yet, I don't know.

This is the second in the bleak, dark and atmospheric DI Ray Drake series set in London, and it is absolutely stunning, demonstrating that the author's outstanding debut was no fluke and he is a gifted storyteller. However, I would advise reading the first book prior to reading this as what happens here builds on what happened there. A well to do couple return home unexpectedly from holiday to find strangers in their home, and DI Drake and DS Flick Crowley are on the scene when their bludgeoned bodies are discovered. This is no isolated incident as more homeowners are found dead with the same MO. Tatia is desperately in search of security, stability and a family to belong to, but not just any family, the Bliss family in particular. The Bliss family, with their three children, Poppy, Joel and Will, rescue a child, Tatia, from a grim orphanage in Georgia, but the adoption process was a rather murky underhand affair.

Tatia was renamed Sarah, and she was over the moon to be part of the family until the day Will dies, falling off a cliff, splintering and damaging the Bliss family irrevocably. Sarah took the blame and to her horror was returned to the nightmare of her orphanage, but it is not clear what exactly occurred the day Will died. Tatia has returned with dreams of reuniting and belonging to her former siblings, and in the meantime, she tries to capture a glimpse of the life that could have been hers by breaking into wealthy homes, pretending for a few brief hours that this is her real life, all that was denied and taken away from her. Drake is living under the fear that his life is on the cusp of falling apart, terrified that Flick will reveal the truth of who he is and what he has done. Flick has covered up for Ray but she is not sure she can live with this, but she finds fun, respite and distraction in the form of a man she meets accidentally at her therapist's office, Sam Wylie, but who is he?. There are others from Drake's past who intrude into the present, bringing with them menace and danger into his life.

Mark Hill writes a cracking yarn, gritty, compelling, and hypnotically mesmerising, and his prose and plotting are exceptional. His true gift is the characters he creates, those more sinned against than sinning, psychologically complex, and with levels of depth that ensure that you will read anything Hill writes. The tragic cards that life deals out means there are no happy endings as justice remains beyond the reach of those whose lives and futures are shattered. In this novel, Hill depicts a picture where evil prospers at the expense of good, often the real picture of what happens in our contemporary world. The central character of Drake is in a state of constant development as Ray fights to survive his past, connecting with who he really used to be to provide the inner resources for him to live. This is unmissable crime fiction, and I suspect it will make its way to our TV screens some time in the future, it would be such a shame if it did not. Simply superb and highly recommended! Many thanks to Little, Brown for an ARC.

Please, do yourself a favour and pop along to the first in this series, His First Lie (aka The Two O'Clock Boy) and read that before you start this one. I know it's always best practice to do this with a series anyway, even if the main stories are self contained, but as DI Ray Drake is a bit more of a complex character than most, I personally think you'll have a much better time reading this book if you have read the first. Oh and it's brilliant so, why not?!
Since the events that transpired in his first outing, Ray has been living on borrowed time. His secret is out and the person sharing it with him could be on the verge of telling all. Even considering the repercussions to their own professional life, the burden is weighing heavily. But, with this sword of Damocles hanging over his head, Ray still has a job to do. A couple has been murdered in their own home. Initial thoughts are that they interrupted a burglary in progress and were collateral damage. A key piece of evidence is uncovered which leads to another body and soon a connection is made. Here's where the book strays from the norm as we know who the perpetrators are, so the book becomes more about the means and ways to catch them, as well as peeling back the layers to figure out the reasons why. Layers that go back in time, to the death of a child, an accident that has consequences for all involved. Can Ray put his personal demons aside enough to get to the truth of the case in front of him and bring justice to all?
I really loved The Two O'Clock Boy when I read it (sorry, His First Lie, although to be honest I prefer the original title, sorry again) and was itching to reconnect with Ray and find out what happens next for him. It did end up in my top five of 2017 and well deserved that place amongst the 300 odd other books I read last year. One of the things I loved about that was the way the author set the atmosphere of each scene without having to resort to unnecessary over-description. As a reader you really get sucked in to whatever was going on - feeling more like you are an actual first hand observer rather than just a remote viewer. He really draws you in to everything going on, and believe me, there is a lot going on here. Not just the main crime being investigated, and the past spark that set it all off, but there is also a side-story revolving around Ray's big secret and the ways and means that certain people are employing to uncover it and expose him. This in itself has been very cleverly woven in to the main story rather than plonked in disjointedly so it all flows along very well with no jagged edges.
The other thing that the author does very well is selling his wounded characters. He manages to spin cause and effect and have you sympathising with the more dubious characters rather than everything being black and white; good or bad. I really love it when an author challenges me this way, especially when they give me food for thought and I end up spending a while after reading a book still thinking about certain things.
All in all this highly anticipated book completely met every expectation I had. Definitely a main contender for top 5 again this year. It really did tick every box for me, so much so that I am actually craving more... My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Now in case you missed it, I was quite a fan of Mark Hill's debut novel His First Lie (previously titled The two O'Clock Boy). I loved the character of Ray Drake and the whole premise of that first novel, a delicious blend of mystery, murder and deep rooted secrets with a protagonist a little on the dark, damaged and moody side, just the way I like them. When I heard that its follow up, It Was Her, was available on Netgalley I was straight on it, ignoring all my other plans in order to read it. The question was, could this second book capture that same level of interest? Did it have the killer hook like the first book which kept me reading into the wee hours and had me all bleary eyed and barely coherent at work?

Why yes, Yes it did. Now clearly, with Ray's past being revealed in book one, this takes on an entirely different tone and for that very reason I would recommend that you read that book first as It Was Her contains significant spoilers for its predecessor which will ruin the reading experience if done the other way around. That said, if you do pick this one up first then you will know what is going on as there is enough recap for the uninitiated and the main bulk of the story, that of Tatia and her family, is very much a self contained story. Family secrets abound in this one and the twist in this tale, much like book one, is to separate fact from fiction - to determine the true cause of the evil within the book. Just where and with whom does the true fault lie.

The central theme then? Well our protagonist, Ray Drake, is called to the scene of a brutal murder. A couple, just freshly returned from a wonderful holiday, struck down in their home in an apparent home invasion. He is back working alongside Flick Crowley, both having recovered from injuries sustained in the previous investigation, but with their partnership, their friendship, changed irrevocably, adding a delightful layer of mistrust and uncertainty to the pairing. Can they overcome their differences in order to work together to solve the murders? Only time, and around about 400 fabulous pages, will tell.

Now this is a very complex story and not only are we faced with the murders in the present day, but also segments which take up back into Tatia's past, memories from her adoptive bother Joel. Joel is a fragile and damaged young man but we don't know quite why, what it is that has happened that has affected him so badly. Compare the both of them to their other sister, Sarah, and you have quite an unusual family dynamic. Troubled and disturbing, it certainly captured the imagination and the way in which the three interact, the trepidation they feel when finally reunited set me, as a reader, on edge. You know this is a situation where anything can happen and given the level of violence which has already occurred, I was waiting with bated breath to see where it may lead.

The main story is tense, thrilling, dark and twisted but oh ... I do love Ray Drake. There is something about him, a darker, more dangerous side than the one he shows his colleagues, which just makes him a perfect hero for me. It is on full display throughout this book, the uncertainty of his position leading to his darker side taking control on more than one occasion. And with good cause it appears as not only does he have to worry about the breakdown in his friendship with Flick, but it now appears someone else is on his case too.

I love the way in which Mark Hill played the situation between Flick and Ray. Flick is a highly principled officer but her loyalty to Ray leaves her truly conflicted by what she knows. It makes for some great scenes between the two, conflict but also acceptance. I like that Flick gets to let her hair down a bit with a fellow 'patient' from her therapist, but from the very beginning I was struck with an overwhelming feeling of 'what the heck are you thinking Flick', and if, when, you read the book, then I think you'll know why,

And then those dying chapters, where everything is brought to a head. Tense action, an emotional confrontation and scenes which will bring the team right to the very edge, quite literally as it happens. When the full story is revealed I wasn't completely blindsided, not like I had been in book one, but it was a very fitting end, skilfully played. And that very last scene. The threat, the promise. The agonising bloody wait for book three.

I'll cope.

Just.

Dark, tense, twisted and totally satisfying. Nice one Mr Hill. More please.