Jessica Moor's debut is two books mashed together in a way that didn't work for me. The story of Katie, a young woman who escapes an abusive relationship to work in a women's refuge, took two thirds of the book to build.

Cutting between the Then of the abusive relationship and the Now of the police investigation into her death, the novel is peppered with half formed stereotypical characters whose lack of definition made them difficult to care about.

I was a quarter of the way from the end when I mentally told Moor to just get on with it.

There's a twist, of course, but you can see it coming a mile off. ( )

Set outside of Manchester, the debut thriller by Jessica Moor is a dark and atmospheric tale with an ending twist that surprised me. The book goes back and forth between when a young woman meets and begins a relationship with a seemingly nice young man and after her body has been pulled from the river as an apparent suicide, where there are just enough questions to warrant an investigation.

The story is cleverly constructed and while the signs add up in the story of Katie's relationship, it's because the reader is also following two detectives as they attempt to find out about her past. She was working in a shelter for battered women when she went missing, so finding out about her involves getting to know the group of women who are taking refuge there, from a teenage girl beaten to the point of needing to be hospitalized by her younger brother, to a seventy year old woman who took 49 years to leave her abusive husband. The two detectives, especially the older one, is dismissive and skeptical of the women's fears and both dislike the abrasive woman who runs the house.

A lot of this novel is disturbing to read, focusing as it does on a variety of ways women are abused by those they are closest to. It might have easily been ham-handed or preachy, but is saved by the way the two male detectives are drawn and in that startling but logical twist at the end. I'm eager to read Moor's next novel. ( )

Abandoned at 56%
It started so well, and I was immediately drawn into the narrative of a woman being drawn into a coercive and abusive relationship but I just lost interest halfway through. Too many other pov characters from the woman's refuge and ultimately, I just stopped wanting to know. It could be the fact that the world has gone mad at the moment with convid19 mania and this book is a bit too harrowing reading for right now, but I haven't dnf'd a book after the halfway point before. ( )

I thought this book would be a simple, mindless thriller, but it ended up affecting me deeply. The story is alternately heartbreaking, maddening, horrifying, and frustrating. The plot is structured well, and the twist at the end shocked me.

The author describes an abusive/coercive relationship so well that readers will feel the victim's initial ambivalence, growing unease, and ultimate terror. The police officers who are meant to serve and protect victims turn out to be patronizing, ignorant, incurious, prejudiced, and even worse. This story is a good reminder of why reformers advocate to defund the police: they are at best ineffectual and at worst actively working against justice. (I was reminded of ProPublica's investigations into the police forces in Alaska.) Recommended for all readers. ( )

When Katie Shaw's body is pulled from the water, the police or sent to investigate. Is this a suicide or murder? Sgt. Whitwort, an old school detective, close to retirement and his trained Sgt. Brookes go to the abuse shelter where Katie worked. At first information is scarce, the head of the shelter is reluctant to let these two men talk to these emotionally fragile women. Plus, no online footprint of a Katie Shaw can be found.

At the abuse shelter the reader comes to know the stories of the women and the abuse they suffered. We receive a clear picture of the different abuses as well as their hopes and dreams, their fears. We also see Katie through the eyes of those with whom she worked. Promising beginnings, dashed hopes.
In alternate chapters we learn Katie's story. What had brought her here and exactly how it happened. How a bright and intelligent woman can become ensnared in an abusive realtionship. How an abuser works, step by step. Slowly eroding a person's self confidence, makes himself indispensable. So incredibly evil and tragic.

Although this is slotted as a mystery, it is also I believe and important book on an important subject. Their ate the required red herrings, but it also read for me as nonfiction. It had such a chilling tone, and seemed so real.

ARC from Edelweiss.

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