BlogTour: The Confession by Jo Spain @QuercusBooks @SpainJoanne @annecater #TheConfession #5*MustRead!

 

I’m absolutely thrilled to be on the tour for The fabulous The Confession and to be able to share my review with you.  I really enjoyed this thrilling, addictive thriller and think it is a definite must read for 2018.

The Confession is available in ebook now and in hardback on the 25th January here.

Book Blurb:

SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE NOT ALL THEY SEEM….

SOMETIMES THE TRUTH HIDES A SECRET….

SOMETIMES A CONFESSION IS THE BEGINNING….NOT THE END

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?

My Review:

The Confession is a book that has been getting  lot of hype on social media and, I’m always slightly nervous about starting books like that.  There’s always the worry that I won’t enjoy  it as much as everyone else and will spend my days explaining why I don’t like it to fellow confused book lovers.  With The Confession I needn’t have worried as I am pleased to re port it is a fantastic and addictive read that truly deserves the hype.

The story opens with a gruesome attack on banker Harry McNamara which is a fairly shocking opener and definitely ensured that I was hooked early on.  Te reader finds out who was responsible for the attack a few pages in when the suspect turns himself into the police a few hours after the attack.  This did leave me wondering where on earth the story was going to go as half the fun in such books is figuring out who has done the murder.  However the author had something much more clever and compelling in mind.

The story is told from three separate points of view.; Julie (Harry’s wife), Alice Moody (the investigating police officer) and JP Carney (the attacker).  Throughout the book the reader is taken back over the character’s past and discovers what had happened that provoked such a violent attack on Harry.  Through this we discover the true state of Harry and Julie’s marriage and unearth some of the dark secrets contained there.  We discover exactly what sort of man harry was and why someone would attack him.  We are also taken back over JP’s childhood and early life to discover a sad history of neglect and abuse that was very poignant to read about.

The character development in this book is brilliant and I found myself changing my opinion on them as the book progressed.  My favourite character was actually JP (yes the attacker!).  His story was a very sad one and I found myself feeling a lot sympathy for him and the hard decisions he had to make.  He had to take on a lot of responsibility quite young and I found myself admiring him for doing this.  His loyalty toward others and how he puts his life eon hold for them was very admirable.  Alice was another great character who I enjoyed reading about.  She was very clever and thorough, refusing to give us even when everyone else had made up their minds. I like that she wasn’t perfect and had flaws as it made her seem so much more human.  Her banter with DS Gallagher was very funny to read about and helped provide a few lighter moments that broke the tension. I really disliked Julie, finding her incredibly silly and naive.  I did feel sorry or her and the situation she finds herself in but I was almost screaming at her to wise up at times as she seemed so determined to  hide her head in the sand.

The back stories of the characters gradually reveals the secrets they have been hiding, and a few twists revelations definitely kept my interest and made me want to keep reading.  The story is very compelling and I found myself looking forward to picking up the book again to find out what was going to happen.  For this reason I think it would be a good book club read as I think it would be a book that everyone would enjoy and be able to read fairly quickly as they would find it impossible to put down.

This is Jo Spain’s second book and I will look forward to reading more from her.  If you are a fan of clever, compelling and utterly addictive thrillers you will love this!

Thank you to Quercus books and Anne Cater for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.

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.

Jo is currently writing for TV.

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.

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