Very Nearly Dead by A K Reynolds
Published by Bloodhound Books
Publication Date:
Genre: Thriller
Book Description:
My name is Jasmine Black, and I'm an ordinary woman apart from three things;
I'm hiding a terrible secret from my youth, my past is catching up with me and when it does, I'll be dead.
Jasmine Black, a 34 year old alcoholic, criminal lawyer, has a secret.
At the age of 16 she was in a gang of youths that committed a horrendous crime. As members of the gang start being killed one by one, Jasmine fears for her life.
Desperate to uncover who is responsible for the murders, Jasmine starts to investigate.
But can she uncover the truth before it's too late?
I'm hiding a terrible secret from my youth, my past is catching up with me and when it does, I'll be dead.
Jasmine Black, a 34 year old alcoholic, criminal lawyer, has a secret.
At the age of 16 she was in a gang of youths that committed a horrendous crime. As members of the gang start being killed one by one, Jasmine fears for her life.
Desperate to uncover who is responsible for the murders, Jasmine starts to investigate.
But can she uncover the truth before it's too late?
My Review:
My thanks to Heather Fitt from Bloodhound Books for the opportunity to read and review this title which I very much enjoyed.
The past really is coming back to haunt the group of school friends from way back. The date of the annual school reunion is coming up and the pressure is taking its toll on Jaz, a functioning alcoholic with a high powered job as a criminal lawyer whose job it is to defend those on the wrong side of the law - a position she has secretly held ever since her last year of school, which very much determined her choice of career.
The authors have really managed to weave the weight of the teenagers' crime into their adult lives, the effects have taken their toll on all of them in different ways but the one thing common amongst all of them is that they are all scared - so much so that not one of them has ever broken their silence. So what has changed to make someone want to dispose of all those involved? Jaz doesn't immediately make the link between her hit and run incident and the past, probably as she is in a permanent fog of alcohol which takes the edge off her mental capacity. A state which is threatening her ability to hold down her job.
As Jaz meets up with her former classmates at the reunion and beyond, tragedy begins to strike at a rapidly increasing rate Jaz realises she needs to get sufficient grip on her alcohol intake to start asking questions and figuring things out. But just as she thinks she has it all worked out, the one person the group always saw as invincible is taken out of the equation and Jaz has to think fast to save the rest of them from a similar fate. The AA meetings are just going to have to take a back seat for a while.
The destructive effects of alcohol abuse are portrayed in scarily real terms and the tension cranks up steadily throughout the book which I felt was very well paced. Would the gang be found out - and would Jaz have to face her own music in regard to the hit and run? The climax to the story came quite quickly and concisely, however I found this fitted the story after nearly two decades of the perpetrators having waited for a knock at their doors. Whether justice is done... you will have to decide for yourself.
I'm not usually a fan of collaboration writing, but this is a resounding success and I will definitely be up for reading more of the Reynolds' work.
About the Author:
Kath provides the ideas for their stories and writes the introspective thoughts of their fictional characters. Andy does most of the plotting and writes the action scenes.
As to their backgrounds, Kath has worked in a women’s refuge and latterly as a consultant; Andy is a former lawyer.
Very Nearly Dead, a domestic noir thriller with a woman at its centre, is their debut novel. They plan to write many more.
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