The Night Caller by JM Hewitt
Publication Date 15th August 2019
Published by Bookouture
Police Procedural
My thanks to Noelle Holten from Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review this title ahead of publication.
Book Description:
Detective Carrie Flynn has spent twenty years searching for her little sister, who was kidnapped and never found. The worst part for Carrie is that she was with Hattie on that hot summer day. Carrie saw her sister’s abductor, but she was just a little girl herself, and remembers nothing. She will never forgive herself for letting Hattie down.
When the chance came to join the police force, Carrie didn’t hesitate. She would solve missing person cases and fight for justice – no more families stuck in limbo, no more grieving mothers, no more sisters growing up alone… But now a serial killer is stalking Carrie’s hometown of Manchester: late at night, people are going missing down at the canal. Six years, a dozen disappearances.
When another victim is taken, Carrie is sure the family is hiding something and she’s determined to find out the secret behind their silence. Why does the mother not want to answer Carrie’s questions? Who is the mysterious girl next door? Carrie knows that to track down the killer, she must find out everything she possibly can about the innocents they have chosen to hunt.
Carrie holds on to one fact: last year, standing by the water, she caught a glimpse of the killer, and the distinctive tattoo on his arm. He slipped through her fingers, but she won’t let it happen again. She’ll never stop searching, for the grieving families, for her belief in justice, and her hope that, one day, something she finds will lead her back to her lost little sister.
Can she finally solve the case that has cast a long shadow over her career and will the demons in her own past help her to catch this deadly killer?
If you love Val McDermid, Robert Dugoni or Angela Marsons you won’t be able to put down this dark and twisty thriller. J.M. Hewitt will keep you guessing until the very last page.
When the chance came to join the police force, Carrie didn’t hesitate. She would solve missing person cases and fight for justice – no more families stuck in limbo, no more grieving mothers, no more sisters growing up alone… But now a serial killer is stalking Carrie’s hometown of Manchester: late at night, people are going missing down at the canal. Six years, a dozen disappearances.
When another victim is taken, Carrie is sure the family is hiding something and she’s determined to find out the secret behind their silence. Why does the mother not want to answer Carrie’s questions? Who is the mysterious girl next door? Carrie knows that to track down the killer, she must find out everything she possibly can about the innocents they have chosen to hunt.
Carrie holds on to one fact: last year, standing by the water, she caught a glimpse of the killer, and the distinctive tattoo on his arm. He slipped through her fingers, but she won’t let it happen again. She’ll never stop searching, for the grieving families, for her belief in justice, and her hope that, one day, something she finds will lead her back to her lost little sister.
Can she finally solve the case that has cast a long shadow over her career and will the demons in her own past help her to catch this deadly killer?
If you love Val McDermid, Robert Dugoni or Angela Marsons you won’t be able to put down this dark and twisty thriller. J.M. Hewitt will keep you guessing until the very last page.
My Review:
This an extremely atmospheric book, with lots of angles to it. The prologue is a creepy insight into the night time activities which are the focus of the police investigation throughout the book. 'The Pusher' is someone who is targeting young men and pushing them into the murky depths of the canals around Manchester but his MO seems to have changed from the first victims compared to later ones. Can troubled detective Carrie Flynn and her colleague Paul Harper find the perpetrator before he claims another life? Carrie believes she saw the man on the opposite side of the canal watching events unfold as one of his victims is retrieved from the water however he mysteriously vanishes into the night leaving her chasing shadows.
Interestingly the detectives are not the main storyline here - obviously the crime investigation takes up a big thread of the story but the spotlight falls far more onto victim's mum Emma Robinson and her neighbour Jade, their mutual history and their neighbourhood. Emma's son Jordan has gone missing, the latest suspected victim of The Pusher. His body has yet to be found, which is the anomaly in the investigation. All the others have been found within hours of their disappearance but he remains missing days later.
The story looks into missing Jordan's life, his friends - or lack of them - and the people closest to him. Carrie is convinced his mother is holding back information, but is it more the case that she never really knew her son at all? Nobody really seems to 'know' him, only the persona he creates at a given time. He is a character with more hidden depths than the dark, cold waters the police are searching for him in.
I was totally drawn into the chilling, dark atmosphere of this book and although I had my suspicions about the conclusion of the book virtually from the start, the author takes us on an exceptional journey to reach that end. Suspicions fall on a few people along the way, and I particularly liked the character of nosy, judgmental character Mrs Oberman who has a starring role all of her own in this novel which makes the reader think about just how well we really know anyone at all.
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About the Author:
J.M. Hewitt writes crime fiction and is the
author of two previous crime fiction novels and has been published in two short
story publications. Her work usually incorporates twentieth and twenty-first
century events and far flung locations, and her novels explore the darker side
of human behaviour.
In contrast to the sometimes dark content of her books, she lives in a seaside town in Suffolk with her dog, Marley.
When she was ten years old she'd read all the books she owned, all those on her mother's bookcase and everything the library had to offer. She decided the only course of action to take was to write her own stories. Thirty years later, she is still writing them.
In contrast to the sometimes dark content of her books, she lives in a seaside town in Suffolk with her dog, Marley.
When she was ten years old she'd read all the books she owned, all those on her mother's bookcase and everything the library had to offer. She decided the only course of action to take was to write her own stories. Thirty years later, she is still writing them.
Author Social Media
Links:
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/jmhewitt
WEBSITE: www.jeanettehewitt.com
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