#BlogTour #TheConfession by Jo Spain #Book #Review

Publication date 25 January 2018

Quercus Books

I am delighted to be playing host to the Blog Tour stop today for Jo Spain's brilliant thriller The Confession. Many thanks to Anne Cater and Quercus Books for the invitation to be part of this exciting event.  I received a advance e-copy of this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Everything about this book screamed "READ ME!" from the cover graphics to the synopsis, and I certainly wasn't disappointed once I started reading.


WHAT IF THE CONFESSION WAS JUST THE BEGINNING...?
FIND OUT WHO DID IT ON THE VERY FIRST PAGE. ON THE LAST PAGE, FIND OUT WHY.

THE MOST GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER OF 2018: PERFECT FOR FANS OF HE SAID, SHE SAID AND THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR.

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.

Just an hour later the attacker, JP Carney, has handed himself in to the police. He confesses to beating Harry to death, but JP claims that the assault was not premeditated and that he didn't know the identity of his victim. With a man as notorious as Harry McNamara, the detectives cannot help wondering, was this really a random act of violence or is it linked to one of Harry's many sins: corruption, greed, betrayal?

This gripping psychological thriller will have you questioning, who - of Harry, Julie and JP - is really the guilty one? And is Carney's surrender driven by a guilty conscience or is his confession a calculated move in a deadly game?

My review:

"It's the first spray of my husband's blood hitting the television screen that will haunt me in the weeks to come - a perfect diagonal splash, each droplet descending like a vivid red tear.  That, and the sound of his skull cracking as the blows from the golf club rain down."

I don't think I have read a more attention-grabbing opening to a book - ever! We are thrown straight in to the plotline, gruesome and shocking as it is.  We know who the perpetrator of the crime is, we know the victim's name. But what we don't know is why the crime happened at all.

The story then rewinds to when the victim Harry McNamara met his wife, Julie. Told from various points of view throughout the book we find out how Harry becomes a very wealthy businessman and the effects that his money has on his and Julie's lifestyle and relationship. Set predominantly during the 1990s boom to bust years we are given a taste of the circles the McNamaras move in, and they type of people they mix with - not all of them above board - and once the crash comes Harry and his cronies find themselves centre of a major fraud investigation.

Running alongside this we have the story of JP Carney, the man who immediately confesses to killing Harry.  Starting in his childhood years we see a deprived family, mum is bi-polar and is regularly hospitalized leaving dad Seamie to bring up John Paul and his younger sister Charlene. He has a weakness for the demon drink and ends up in no fit state to look after the children. Their lifestyle couldn't be further from that of the McNamara's, but JP feels a strong sense of responsibility for making sure Charlene has a decent education & upbringing in order to give them a chance to get out of the poverty they have both grown up with. They have a very close sibling bond which only gets stronger as they grow up.We clearly know that the two families lives cross over at some point but it isn't clear for a good three quarters of the book how they come to feature so significantly that JP feels the need to end Harry's life. 

The author's interweaving of those threads is brilliantly written, with events leading your thoughts about the various characters first one way then another as each section of the tale is related from a different individual's point of view. Why did JP feel the need to act so violently? How much is Julie involved? Is JP merely a paid hitman? There is one revelation after another in the build up to the final chapter and I felt emotionally drained as I closed the book.

About the Author: Jo Spain

Jo Spain's first novel With Our Blessing was one of seven books shortlisted in the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and went on to be a top-ten bestseller in Ireland.  She has written two further in the series featuring DI Tom Reynolds.  Jo has worked as a party advisor on the economy in the Irish Parliament and is now writing full-time.  She lives in Dublin with her husband and their four young children.