#BlogTour #TheConfession #BookReview @QuercusBooks
Welcome to my stop on The Confession blog tour.
About the Book:
Late one night a man walks into the luxurious home of disgraced banker Harry McNamara and his wife Julie. The man launches an unspeakably brutal attack on Harry as a horror-struck Julie watches, frozen by fear. It looks like Harry’s many sins – corruption, greed, betrayal – have finally caught up with him.
An hour later the intruder, JP Carney, hands himself in, confessing to the assault. The police have a victim, a suspect in custody and an eye-witness account, but Julie remains troubled.
Has Carney’s surrender really been driven by a guilty conscience or is this confession the first calculated move in a deadly game?
Published in hardback: 25th January 2018 / EBook: 11th January 2018
Author: Jo Spain
Publisher: Quercus Books
My thoughts:
This is an explosive psychological thriller; a real cat and mouse read that leaves you flitting between perspectives, characters and storylines. I started reading this late one night and was completely addicted, I had to force myself to put it down so I could get some sleep.
From the first page, we know who the killer is, but it isn’t until the last that we find out why. I loved this concept, as it flipped the usual murder mystery on it’s head – Jo Spain delved into the back-stories and lives of the characters, unravelling their pasts to help us understand what really happened. It provided the book with a dark storyline that reels you in.
At the heart of this novel is Harry McNamara, his wife Julie and their dysfunctional marriage. It highlights that often it is not all as it seems on the surface; we shouldn’t be too quick to judge. Throughout, the characters are well-developed, wonderfully dark, complex and so dislikable. With many twists and turns, I found myself second guessing what had happened, realising at the end I was completely wrong – when I reached the last page I had to take some time to absorb it all.
The Confession is such a great read; it grips you from the get-go and pulls you in. I promise, if you like thrillers you’ll be up all night wanting to read just a little bit more…
About the Author:
Jo Spain’s first novel, top ten bestseller With our Blessing, was one of seven finalists in the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller Competition 2015. It was named as an Irish Times crime fiction book of the year by Declan Burke. Beneath the Surface (2016) and Sleeping Beauties (2017), the second and third in the DI Tom Reynolds series followed, to further critical acclaim. Her standalone thriller, The Confession, will be released January 2018.
A graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Jo lives in Dublin with her husband and their four young children. Jo previously worked as a policy advisor in the Irish parliament and as vice-chair of the business body InterTrade Ireland.
Jo’s debut novel is set against a background of the infamous Irish Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby homes. The author’s own father was born in one such home in Dublin and the novel’s backdrop was constructed based on the in-depth research she undertook while attempting to trace her family roots.
Her favourite writers include Pierre LeMaitre, Fred Vargas, Louise Penny, Jo Nesbo, Ann Cleeves, B.A. Paris, Elizabeth Haynes and Agatha Christie.
You can read the other posts on the blog tour here:
Harry's Book Club 