🚙🚙🚙🚙
If Something Happens to Me
Alex Finlay
336 pages
Head of Zeus/Minotaur books
June 6th
Amazon | GoodReads | Bookshop.org
If Something Happens to Me is a standalone suspense thriller set in Leavenworth, Kansas, by the author of bestsellers Every Last Fear and The Night Shift, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I was pleased to be approved for a review copy of this one in spite of some less enthusiastic ratings from fellow reviewers. I found I was gripped from the beginning and raced through it to see how it would turn out.
The night before they are due to head to separate colleges, Ryan and his girlfriend Alison visit their local Lover’s Lane in her father’s car for a romantic goodbye, but then they are attacked, and when Ryan comes round, both Alison and the car are gone. Five years later, law student Ryan is still trying to move on from the suspicion that surrounded him and guilt at not being able to save her. When he recognises his attacker on a trip to Italy, and learns that Ali may still be alive, he is determined to find her – but ruthless killers are also looking for her – and will stop at nothing to track her down.
This is another tightly plotted mystery thriller with appealing main characters and a satisfying denouement, even if the twist was too predictable. As I’ve said of his previous books, Finlay is one of the few authors I’ve come across who can pull off present tense narration – possibly because the story is told from multiple points of view. The plot hinges on some unlikely coincidences – the car being found just as Ryan’s attacker finds him, and the way all the key Leavenworth characters are connected – unless I missed how these events were linked, but I can forgive this. I liked the way the main villain’s motivation made complete sense and you could almost sympathise with their actions, which doesn’t often happen in a thriller.
Leave a Reply