The Trial by Jo Spain @QuercusBooks #TheTrial #libraryloan

 

The Trial by Jo Spain

Published by Quercus

Publication Date: 25th April 2024

Book Description:

2014, Dublin: at St Edmunds, an elite college on the outskirts of the city, twenty-year-old medical student Theo gets up one morning, leaving behind his sleeping girlfriend, Dani, and his studies - never to be seen again. With too many unanswered questions, Dani simply can't accept Theo's disappearance and reports him missing, even though no one else seems concerned, including Theo's father.

Ten years later, Dani returns to the college as a history professor. With her mother suffering from severe dementia, and her past at St Edmunds still haunting her, she's trying for a new start. But not all is as it seems behind the cloistered college walls - meanwhile, Dani is hiding secrets of her own.

My Thoughts:

One of the most shocking openers to any book I've read was written by Jo Spain. The prologue to The Confession has stuck with me ever since I read it back in 2017. This was the influencing factor in my decision to pluck The Trial from the shelf at my library recently. I tend to like novels set in Ireland too, which also helped, however my mind assumed that the title suggested "courtroom thriller" when it is actually based around a pharmaceutical drug trial which researchers at the college are involved in. My bad. 

So, once I had settled into the subject matter not being what I'd expected, I began to process the story. Students Dani and Theo are very much in love, so it was a complete bombshell moment when Dani finds Theo missing from her lodgings at the college early one morning, never to be seen again. Fast forward into the separate timeline ten years later, and Dani is back at the college in a very different role.

My gut instinct told me straight away that there was more to Dani's reappearance at the college than a case of her returning to teach at her old place of study. I couldn't imagine that it would be a sentimental decision given how things ended there for her. And sure enough, as the layers of the story get peeled away, the truth gradually comes out.  There are some quite unsavoury characters involved with the college but it takes Dani considerably longer than expected to wheedle out who the bad guys are and how deeply they are involved in events, past and present, which require investigating. Dani's suspicions about what happened to Theo also cloud her judgment and slow her progress, facts which cleverly provide a few red herrings for the author to use to smoke screen the reader too.

I enjoyed this book with its glimmer of hope for dementia treatments and some well-written unpleasant characters to get my teeth into making judgments on (don't you just love a real nasty piece of work in a novel?) however as it wasn't the book I was expecting I think this took the shine away from it for me. I know I should have read the synopsis before jumping in and that's entirely my fault but add to this the fact I am always wanting the same shock factor from this author that I got from The Confession I think I was expecting a more explosive storyline.

So all in all, an enjoyable story but lacking the edge of the seat action I was hoping for - plus I feel there needs to be a warning regarding the dementia aspect to the story. Anyone who has experience of dealing with this awful condition needs to be aware that it's a strong thread of the story from quite early on in the book and may wish to give it a miss.

About the Author:

Jo Spain is the author of the bestselling Tom Reynolds detective series and several No.1 bestselling standalone thrillers. She began writing full-time when her first book, top ten bestseller With Our Blessing, was chosen as one of 7 finalists in the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition.

Jo is a full-time screenwriter. Her first show, critically-acclaimed crime series 'Taken Down', aired in 2018. In 2021, she co-wrote Harry Wild, starring Jane Seymour, with its creator, Emmy-award winning David Logan (to air 2022). She is currently working on several international productions, including adaptations of her own novels.

A graduate of Trinity College, Jo lives in Dublin with her husband and four children.