“I Let You Go” by Clare Mackintosh (2014) – book review

Every parent’s worst nightmare – a split decision act that tips your world irrevocably and irretrievably on its head. Within two pages of starting this book, the reader is drawn into the nightmarish scenario of a hit-and-run accident and the unimaginable consequences of letting go of a five-year-old child’s hand for just one awful second.

It’s a very fast read, mainly because once you start you need to keep going at breakneck speed all the way through to see how the author is going to make sense of it all. Clare Mackintosh does keep you enthralled from start to end, and her note at the end of the book goes quite some way towards explaining how she came up with the idea, and how she manages to be so convincing from all points of view.

With lots of twists and turns along the way, think it’s primed to be a great summer read – although perhaps not ideal if you happen to thumb your way through it in a remote, windswept part of South Wales, for that is where some of the key action takes place and you might spend the entire time looking anxiously over your shoulder as you feverishly turn the pages, fearing the worst.

Another psychological thriller in the same broad vein as “The Girl on the Train” and “Just What Kind of Mother are You?”, this début novel has already clocked up over 500 five star reviews on Amazon.co.uk, but confess I was initially tempted away from the top sellers’ shelf in the service station last week when I saw the ‘Richard and Judy’ sticker slapped on the jacket cover. Feeling a tad sheepish now that it is under my belt and have gone onto the R&J website to have a nosy at their list of previous choices – Hardy and Murakami might not be honoured on their lists, but speedy post to follow on in the not too distant of some pretty good reads they have recommended over previous years. Bear with me…

Read in June 2015.

Rating : 9/10

Image taken from here.