Close Your Eyes by Rachel Abbott

 

Don’t let him under your skin. He’ll destroy you.

Don’t fight him. He’ll win.

Run. Never let him find you.

I thought I was safe here, but I’m not. I’ve stayed too long. Now Genevieve is dead, and the police are on their way. It’s time for me to go.

I must stick to the plan – the one I made the day I arrived in this city. My bag is packed. It always is. I will destroy every shred of evidence of my existence. The police must never find me. If they do, so will he. 

I made a mistake, and someone had to die. But I’m the one who has truly lost her life.

I need to make a choice. If I keep running, I’ll never stop. If I go back, he will make me suffer. 

How many lives can one person ruin?

Welcome to the Blogtour for Rachel Abbott's 'Close Your Eyes'. 

Close Your Eyes is the latest in the series of crime thrillers featuring DCI Tom Douglas and his team, able to be read as a stand-alone but better read as part of a series if only because to miss any of these books is to miss out on a cracking read (and yeah, probably a few hours sleep a night as the pages keep turning)

Starting, as these things do, with a murder (Genevieve Strachan in this case) the story soon gets as twisty as you would expect of Abbott when a person of interest/possible suspect (Martha) goes on the run and the case hits an apparent brick wall. Obviously with the right amount of digging and investigation the team soon have things back on track but will they be on time? Is it too late for Martha? 

For the large part of the book Martha is the main protagonist in the story with Douglas and co. more or less bit players but that works well with the mystery. There is a strong thread of coercion and manipulation running through Martha's tale and it is not a comfy read but you don't read novel's like this to be comfy do you? 

As is often the case with books in a series like this part of the enjoyment for me is the developing background story of the main players (Tom, Becky etc) and that can offset the bleakness of Martha's story so giving a good balance. 

Highly recommended 

4.2/5*

Thanks as always to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the tour for Close Your Eyes and to the publisher for providing the review copy. 

Please have a look at the posts by the other reviewers on the tour (below)