Review: I LET YOU GO, Clare Mackintosh

• first published in Great Britain in 2014 by Sphere
• ISBN 978-0-7515-5416-8
• 370 pages
• Source: my local library

Synopsis (Publisher)

A tragic accident. It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?

In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.

Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .

My Take

The story is narrated through a number of voices. The beginning is a hit and run accident on a wet night in which a 5 year old, Jacob, is killed while crossing a surburban road in Bristol with his mother.

The case is assigned to Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and his team but it is one of those accidents that has no witnesses and the boy's mother is unable to give any details of the vehicle.

The title is inevitably a focus of this book, because the mother did let go the little boy's hand as he ran across the road to their house. But not all of the voices tie in well with the title, and that is where the plot twist comes in. On the back cover Peter James terms the plot twist "astonishing" and I'd have to agree: it certainly took me in.

An excellent read. Recommended.

My rating: 4.6