Spoilers Ahead: 

So, I can’t lie to you, I didn’t have high hopes for this book. I don’t know why, because I wanted the surprise and so I didn’t even read the blurb, but all I know is that when it turned out to be amazing, it was a very big shock to me! 

We follow Dan Hellier as he’s investigating the TW murder of a girl, Carly Braithwaite, left in the woods by a school. There are a lot of suspects at first; Mr Braithwaite, her father, who had already been done for abuse; Jenna Braithwaite , her sister, who had an argument with her right before she died; one of her teachers, Mr Westlake, who actually was TW ‘in love’ with Carly (a child, yes, how disgusting); Jed Abrams, a dodgy music man; and Jamie May, the person who was ‘in love’ (infatuated with, actually) the victim. 

It’s Dan’s first case, and he wants to prove himself. He has Ian Gould with him, who’s retiring after his last case - this one! Dan and Ian don’t really get along, but they decide to go on a mission, as they have a sneaking suspicion that Jed Abrams is somehow entangled in this mess. 

Claire Quick goes to see Mr Westlake, as she is his friend, and she finds Jamie there, smoking weed with him. That’s when he admits to being heartbroken over Carly’s death, and Jamie hits Claire over the head until she’s concussed, before tying her up. 

All this time, Jed Abrams has been selling TW child pornography, and has been under the guidance of a Latvian gang, one of the members in which kills Ian Gould on this mission. Dan has been double-crossed by Chaz, Jed’s secretary, in return for a couple grand. They manage to keep one of the Latvian guys in hospital, and his partner - whom he is madly in love with - comes to save him. He offers to tell them everything about the gang, about the operation of child pornography, and how they were going to film that night before moving on. 

So, even though Ian Gould died, their hunches had been correct. And they set up a mission to try and catch the gang and the peadophiles. What they didn’t expect was for Jamie May to do a runner, Mr Westlake to attempt TW suicide, and for Claire Quick to escape and tell the police about Jamie. 

Then it all happens all at once! 

They bring Jamie in, as they find Carly’s missing ballet slipper in his bag, and he tells them that it was Jenna who killed her! He walked in on her strangling Carly, and they called Jed to move her with his van. They let Jamie go and interview Jenna, who has definitely been being used and even using other children in these porn shoots for money, and is also very high in this interview. She says that Jamie is actually the killer, and they find holes in his story, and they realise he is, in actuality fact, the killer. 

They catch the paedophiles and even the Latvian gang members as they’re trying to escape, with Dan and Sally sustaining minor injuries. Jed Abrams gets arrested, Mr Westlake, if he didn’t end up TW killing himself was definitely put in prison, and Jenna and Mr Braithwaite had to mend their relationship, but it was a case closed for the murder. 

Jamie had killed her because he was in love with her, and had gifted her a ring - which she had laughed at - and then they found out about her relationship with Westlake, and he saw red. When he walked into their house the next day and saw Carly and Jenna having a row, when Carly picked up the phone to call Westlake, he strangled her, wanting her to pay for making him feel embarrassed, but he pushed too hard. And when Jenna returned, she saw him over her dead sister, and had to help him hide the body. 

Honestly, this book could have been 5 stars - very easily could have been 5 stars. I loved the dialogue in it, the variety of characters, the plot - oh my god, the plot was so goddamn exciting! I love it when stories have multiple plot twists, ones that actually made sense, and these certainly did. I was entertained the whole way throughout, I don’t think there was every a moment where I was bored. However, there were a few sexist and racist remarks, and it kind of put me off a bit. I was shocked when I found out that it was written by a woman, as you’d normally find some of the phrases in ‘women written by men’… you know the ones. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and I will definitely be reading the second one!