Published by HQ
Publication date: 2nd September 2021
Genre: Legal Thriller
Book Description:
Leila Syed receives a call that cleaves her life in two. Her brother-in-law’s voice is filled with panic. His son’s nursery has called to ask where little Max is.
Leila was supposed to drop Max off that morning. But she forgot.
Racing to the carpark, she grasps the horror of what she has done.
What follows is an explosive, high-profile trial that will tear the family apart. But as the case progresses it becomes clear there’s more to this incident than meets the eye…
My Thoughts:
I absolutely love Kia Abdullah's writing. This book about a successful businesswoman making the worst mistake you can imagine, causing the death of her nephew Max. It's heart breaking in parts yet has you questioning just how it could have come about.
Leila and her sister are close - they have had to be since the loss of their parents during their formative years. Leila adores little Max, especially as she's struggling to start her own family. She and her husband dote on him so how exactly could she forget he was in her car on the hottest day of the year? The story is made up of three threads: the day it happened, the trial itself and the aftermath. Kia has narrated the story brilliantly, picking up on the thought processes all readers must have gone through while reading the book and cleverly threading them into the plotline. The doubts and questions pop up right the way through the book but even so I didn't consider the final direction the story took.
If you want to nit-pick you could argue that Max was too old to be put into the car in the manner described and that it would be unusual for a child his age to be taking a nap at that time in the morning but this is fiction and sometimes you have to open your mind a little and let the little niggles pass for the sake of a good story.
I couldn't wait to get back to this book when I had to take a break (damn that day job!) and am waiting very impatiently for Kia to release her next book at the beginning of 2023. I simply cannot get enough of her work!
About the Author:
Kia Abdullah is an author and travel writer from London. She has written for The New York Times, the Guardian and the Telegraph, and is the author of Truth Be Told, which was shortlisted for The Diverse Book Awards, and Take It Back, named one of the best thrillers of the year by the Guardian and the Telegraph.
Kia frequently contributes to the BBC, commenting on a variety of issues affecting the British Asian community, and is the founder of Asian Booklist, a site that helps readers discover new books by British Asian authors. Kia also runs Atlas & Boots, a travel blog read by 250,000 people a month. For more information about Kia and her writing, visit her website at kiaabdullah.com, or follow her at @KiaAbdullah on Instagram and Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment