Gillian McAllister – BooksPlease

How to Disappear by Gillian McAllister

Published on July 9, 2020 by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve read three books by Gillian McAllister and enjoyed each one so I was delighted when I saw that she has a new book, How To Disappear published today. But, I have mixed feelings about this book, because although it is so tense in parts and is compulsive reading – I really wanted to know what happens next – I did have difficulty in suspending my disbelief for a large part of it. I liked the originality of the story – a murder mystery that is not a police procedural or an amateur detective story, but the story of a family devastated by their experience of being in witness protection. Although I’ve seen TV dramas about witness protection I’ve never read a novel before about it.

Blurb:

What do you do when you can’t run, and you can’t hide?

Lauren’s daughter Zara witnessed a terrible crime. But speaking up comes with a price, and when Zara’s identity is revealed online, it puts a target on her back. The only choice is to disappear. To keep Zara safe Lauren will give up everything and everyone she loves, even her husband. There will be no goodbyes. Their pasts will be rewritten. New names, new home, new lives. The rules are strict for a reason. They are being hunted. One mistake – a text, an Instagram like – could bring their old lives crashing into the new. They can never assume someone isn’t watching, waiting.

As Lauren will learn, disappearing is easy. Staying hidden is harder…

I thought it began well, although, it’s written in the present tense, often a stumbling block for me, setting the scene and establishing the characters. Zara is fourteen when she witnesses the murder of a homeless man by two teenagers. A year later she gives evidence as Girl A, to protect her identity, at the trial of two teenage footballers. But it all goes wrong, the boys are freed and after the trial a search is on to discover her identity and make her pay for what she did. As the situation escalates she is forced to go into witness protection.

This is a dark, intense story about what happened next, and going into more detail about what led up to the murder. It’s told from the four main characters’ viewpoints – Zara, Lauren her mother, Aidan her stepfather and his daughter Ruby. It moves along at quite a good pace, although sometimes I thought it was a bit repetitive about long hot baths or lack of a long hot bath, comfort eating cakes, and compulsive shopping.

The main themes of the book are about witness protection, parenting and family relationships. Gillian McAllister explains in her Author’s Note that there are many blanks she was unable to fill in, ‘due to the UK’s protection service not wishing to reveal their secrets’ to her. She hopes it is ‘believable despite basically having … made it up.’ I found it believable up to a point, but it was the characters’ behaviour that I found so far-fetched. However, it certainly made me wonder how I would cope in witness protection, faced with being unable to contact the family I’d left behind in anyway for fear of the consequences. But, most of all, I didn’t enjoy reading it, and for me that is important when I’m reading a novel. It left me drained – and the ending felt so contrived that it really spoiled the whole book for me.

This was not an easy book for me to review, especially as I was expecting to enjoy it as much as her earlier books!

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 1560 KB
Print Length: 480 pages
Publisher: Penguin (9 July 2020)
Source: Review copy
My rating: 2

My thanks to the publishers, Penguin for my review copy via NetGalley.

Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister

Published on June 26, 2019 by Margaret4 Comments

Anything you do say

Penguin |25 January 2018|358 pages|Paperback|3*

This is a very short post about Anything You Do Say, the second of Gillian McAllister’s books. Walking home alone late one night Joanna is sure the man following her is the man who wouldn’t leave her alone in the bar. She turns to face him and panicking she pushes him away. He falls down the steps leading to the towpath alongside a canal and doesn’t move. What should she do? Should she face the consequences – phone the police and ambulance and wait for them to arrive and or just leave him there, lying in a puddle and walk away?

Both decisions have consequences and from that point on the book explores what would happen if she revealed or concealed her actions.

At first I found it a bit confusing keeping the two stories separate in my mind, but that soon passed as the chapters are clearly headed Reveal or Conceal. It’s a dilemma and Joanna is an indecisive character who in both scenarios regrets choosing both reveal and conceal. I really wanted to like this book and although I think it’s well written and the characters, although in the main not very likeable, come across as believable, I found Joanna’s lies and deceit became tedious and the stories dragged on too much for my liking. I think the structure of the book made it seem artificial, more an exercise in morality than a tense thriller or a mystery.

I prefer her other books that I’ve read – Everything But the Truth, No Further Questions and The Evidence Against You. They are all standalone books, so can be read in any order.

This is on of my TBRs and also one of my 20 Books of Summer books.

My Friday Post: Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister

Published on June 7, 2019 by Margaret5 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

The book I’m featuring this week is Anything You Do Say by Gillian McAllister, a book I started reading yesterday and one of the books on my 20 Books of Summer list.

Anything you do say

It starts with a selfie. He is a random; we are not even sure of his name. We are always meeting them whenever we go out. Laura says it’s because I look friendly. I think it’s because I am always daydreaming, making up lives for people as I stare at them, and they think I’m inviting them over to chat.

I’m thinking that Joanna (we learn the narrator’s name 2 pages later) should stop staring at people like she does – it’s obviously asking for trouble.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice.

30879-friday2b56 These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 54 and page 56:

I haven’t told him. I haven’t told him. I haven’t told him. I haven’t told him.

…

How could I tell him? He would stop looking at me that way. That tiny, knowing smile of his. I’m one of the only people he likes. And so how can I tell him, before anyone else?

Well, I said she should stop staring at people – something bad has happened.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

The Evidence Against You by Gillian McAllister

Published on April 14, 2019April 15, 2019 by Margaret2 Comments

A brilliant psychological thriller

Penguin Michael Joseph|18 April 2019|432 pages|Review copy|5*

I was delighted to receive a review copy of The Evidence Against You by Gillian McAllister from the publishers. And as soon as I began reading it I knew I was going to love it and I just didn’t want to stop reading until I’d finished it. It’s the third book I’ve read by her (her earlier books I’ve read are Everything But the Truth and No Further Questions).

Gabe (Gabriel) English has been released from prison on parole, having served seventeen years for the murder of his wife, Alexandra. Izzy, his daughter, now 36, is dreading his release. Following the death of her mother she had lived with her maternal grandparents until she married Nick, a police analyst and had carried on running her mother’s restaurant on the Isle of Wight.

Her childhood had been a happy one until the murder. The judge said it was an open and shut case and he had sentenced Gabe to life imprisonment. But nobody really knew exactly what had happened the night Alexandra was killed – she simply went missing and then her body was found – she’d been strangled. Izzy had thought that her father could never have harmed anybody, let alone her mother. Now, he swears that he is innocent and wants to tell his side of it. He asks her to consider the evidence for herself. But is he really guilty – can she trust her father?

This is a brilliant book that had me guessing all the way through. I was hoping for Izzy’s sake that Gabe was telling the truth even though the facts didn’t seem to back him up. Prison had changed him – he is angry, bitter and resentful – and Izzy is full of doubts about him and about her parents’ relationship. She questions her memories – what had seemed straight forward and certain to her before, now appears in a different light. But Paul, her father’s friend believes him, telling Izzy that some of the evidence was circumstantial, so she gives him the chance to explain, especially when Paul tells her that there was a witness who could have given Gabe an alibi if the police had found him.

It’s a character-driven story of conflict, of broken lives, of the destruction of families, and of devastating trauma as secrets from the past come to the surface; a story full of twists and turns that left me hoping so much that Gabe was innocent and wondering if he hadn’t killed Alexandra who had and why.

As well as the mystery it’s also about the catastrophic effects of being accused of a crime and being imprisoned long enough to become institutionalised, particularly on release from prison. Gabe finds simple things like shopping difficult and as well as being angry and bitter he is anxious and fearful, struggling with making decisions without the rules and discipline of being in prison.

It’s a tense, tightly plotted book and completely compelling reading. The ending did take me by surprise, although looking back I can see that it was lightly foreshadowed and I just hadn’t noticed. It is without doubt one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.

My thanks to the publishers, Penguin UK Michael Joseph for my review copy via NetGalley.

No Further Questions by Gillian McAllister

Published on August 6, 2018 by Margaret2 Comments

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I was hooked right from the start of No Further Questions by Gillian McAllister. It plunges straight into a trial as Martha sits in the courtroom listening to expert witnesses being questioned and cross-examined about the death of her baby, Layla, just eight weeks old. Her sister Becky is accused of murdering her. Becky was looking after Layla, a difficult baby who cries and screams endlessly, whilst Martha was away in Kos, organising a school for refugee children and her husband, Scott was away at a work conference. She found Layla dead in her cot and denies killing her. It looked like a cot death – until the postmortem showed otherwise – and the police are convinced it was murder.

This is a tense, tightly plotted book, narrated from several viewpoints, but mainly alternating between Martha and Becky, revealing their thoughts and emotions as they relate what had happened. Despite being very different characters with different lifestyles Martha and Becky love and trust each other – otherwise Martha would never have left Layla with Becky. Martha doesn’t want to believe Becky is guilty but as the trial proceeds, as medical and social worker witnesses as well as neighbours and a school teacher present their accounts it looks increasingly bad for Becky. And yet, and this shows how real this trial and these characters came over to me, I couldn’t believe she had done it either.

Despite being written in the present tense, I was gripped by this book. I didn’t want to stop reading it and when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it, about the characters and their relationships, about how they had got themselves into such a terrible situation. Gillian McAllister presents such a complex subject, with great insight into human nature, with characters that are not perfect (as none of us are) – they each have their flaws and make questionable decisions, so it is next to impossible to untangle the truth from supposition.

This is simply an excellent book, and it is without doubt one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Thank you to Gillian McAllister, the publishers and NetGalley for my copy of this book for review.

Format: Kindle Edition ( also to be published in paperback on 18th October 2018)
File Size: 2892 KB
Print Length: 421 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1405934603
Publisher: Penguin (2 July 2018)-

WWW Wednesday: 25 July 2018

Published on July 25, 2018July 25, 2018 by Margaret12 Comments

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WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m currently reading: The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, one of my 10 Books of Summer, and I’ve nearly finished it.

The Woman in Cabin 10

Travel journalist Lo Blacklock is on a luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship when she is woken in the night by screams from cabin 10, her next door cabin. She believes a murder has taken place even though the records show that the cabin was unoccupied. This is a locked house type mystery that begins quite slowly and builds to a climax. But it is testing my scepticism somewhat.

As I’ve nearly finished The Woman in Cabin 10 I’ve just started reading The Story Keeper by Anna Mazzola, which will be published on 26th July 2018. I’m only in Chapter 2 but I am totally captivated so far.

The Story Keeper

Synopsis

Audrey Hart is on the Isle of Skye to collect the folk and fairy tales of the people and communities around her. It is 1857 and the Highland Clearances have left devastation and poverty, and a community riven by fear. The crofters are suspicious and hostile to a stranger, claiming they no longer know their fireside stories.

Then Audrey discovers the body of a young girl washed up on the beach and the crofters reveal that it is only a matter of weeks since another girl disappeared. They believe the girls are the victims of the restless dead: spirits who take the form of birds.

Initially, Audrey is sure the girls are being abducted, but as events accumulate she begins to wonder if something else is at work. Something which may be linked to the death of her own mother, many years before.

And I’m also reading Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore, non fiction about Mary Eleanor Bowes who was the richest heiress in 18th century Britain. She fell under the spell of a handsome Irish soldier, Andrew Robinson Stoney. When Mary heard her gallant hero was mortally wounded in a duel fought to defend her honour, she felt she could hardly refuse his dying wish to marry her. Fascinating reading that if it was fiction you’d say you couldn’t believe it

Wedlock: How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match

I’ve recently finished: No Further Questions by Gillian McAllister. I thought her first book Everything But the Truth was brilliant and this one has lived up to my expectations – another brilliant book. I’ll write more in a later post.

Synopsis:

The police say she’s guilty.

She insists she’s innocent.

She’s your sister.

You loved her.

You trusted her.

But they say she killed your child.

Who do you believe?

My next book could be: Absent in the Spring by Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott.

Absent In The Spring

A striking novel of truth and soul-searching.

Returning from a visit to her daughter in Iraq, Joan Scudamore finds herself unexpectedly alone and stranded in an isolated rest house by flooding of the railway tracks.
Looking back over the years, Joan painfully re-examines her attitudes, relationships and actions and becomes increasingly uneasy about the person who is revealed to her…

Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart, six bittersweet and very personal novels, as compelling and memorable as the best of her work.

Have you read any of these books? Do any of them tempt you?

WWW Wednesday: 18 July 2018

Published on July 18, 2018 by Margaret15 Comments

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WWW Wednesday is run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m currently reading: The Tudor Crown by Joanna Hickson. I know very little about Henry VII, so I’m thoroughly enjoying reading this book. It begins in 1471 as Henry, then aged 14, and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, are at sea off the coast of South Wales on course for France, when a storm forces them to land in Brittany. There they found refuge with Francis, Duke of Brittany for the next 14 years.

Synopsis

When Edward of York takes back the English crown, the Wars of the Roses scatter the Lancastrian nobility and young Henry Tudor, with a strong claim to the throne, is forced into exile.

Recently widowed and vulnerable, his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, forges an uncomfortable alliance with Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Swearing an oath of allegiance to York, Margaret agrees to marry the king’s shrewdest courtier, Lord Stanley. But can she tread the precarious line between duty to her husband, loyalty to her son, and her obligation to God and the king?

When tragedy befalls Edward’s reign, Richard of York’s ruthless actions fire the ambition of mother and son. As their destinies converge each of them will be exposed to betrayal and treachery and in their gruelling bid for the Tudor crown, both must be prepared to pay the ultimate price…

I’ve recently finished: Camino Island by John Grisham, which was not what I expected. It begins well with a daring robbery but then slows down almost to a snail’s pace.

Camino Island

Synopsis:

The most daring and devastating heist in literary history targets a high security vault located deep beneath Princeton University.

Valued at $25 million (though some would say priceless) the five manuscripts of F Scott Fitzgerald’s only novels are amongst the most valuable in the world. After an initial flurry of arrests, both they and the ruthless gang of thieves who took them have vanished without trace.

Now it falls to struggling writer Mercer Mann to crack a case that has thwarted the FBI’s finest minds.

My next book is most likely to be No Further Questions byGillian McAllister. I thought her first book Everything But the Truth was brilliant, so I have high hopes for this book.

Synopsis:

The police say she’s guilty.

She insists she’s innocent.

She’s your sister.

You loved her.

You trusted her.

But they say she killed your child.

Who do you believe?
_________________

Have you read any of these books? Do any of them tempt you?

Everything but the Truth by Gillian Mcallister

Published on March 9, 2017 by Margaret3 Comments

A brilliant book full of secrets and lies

Just how much can you trust the person you love?

Everything but the Truth is Gillian McAllister’s stunning breakthrough thriller about deceit, betrayal and one woman’s compulsive need to uncover the truth

It all started with the email.

Rachel didn’t even mean to look. She loves Jack and she’s pregnant with their child. She trusts him.

But now she’s seen it, she can’t undo that moment. Or the chain of events it has set in motion.

Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn’t Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost?

My thoughts

I was hooked right from the start of Everything but the Truth by Gillian McAllister. It has everything – it’s very readable and well written, with a great sense of place, set in both Newcastle and Oban, with clearly defined and believable characters, a complex plot with plenty of twists and turns, and a dark secret. It is up to date about social media and information about the internet and how to find hidden information (which as I’m not that computer savvy I had to Google to see if it was genuine – it is). The atmosphere in this book is tense and increasingly dark and claustrophobic. Everything but the Truth is an outstanding book in my opinion.

I didn’t want to stop reading it and when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it. As well as being about lies and secrets it’s also about relationships. How we get to know people and learn to trust them. Rachel and Jack are in a very new relationship and there is still an awful lot they don’t know about each other. And when Rachel realises Jack has a secret she doesn’t know how to get him to open up to her about it. Just what is his secret and is it really so terrible that he can’t talk about it? And why can’t he drive? But what does Jack really know about Rachel? Is she hiding something too, or is she paranoid?

Gillian McAllister’s debut book is simply excellent, written with assurance and with great insight into human nature. It is without doubt one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Thank you to Gillian McAllister, the publishers and NetGalley for my copy of this book for review.