The Telling Error: Culver Valley Crime Book 9

Nicki Clements is driving her son’s sports uniform to school when a police blockade puts a dent in her travels. It’s at the barricade that she sees him: the police officer who knows a piece of her secret, one which if unravelled could take her whole life with it. So she drives off. But her suspicious behaviour is misguided – a provocative newspaper columnist is lying dead behind the blockade, his murder complicated, confusing, and just the start of a tangle that Sophie Hannah delights in knotting tighter every time you turn a page. Hannah is a storyteller for whom characters, dialogue and nail-biting tension trip off the page like your drunken best pal who’s a riot after too much homebrewed beer.

One crime I am personally guilty of – get your handcuffs ready for this one – is skipping to the end of a page to find out the name of the criminal when I know it’s just about to be revealed. Never have I wanted to do this as many times as I did during The Telling Error; the book is filled with psychological suspense, mysteries to be solved and indecent pasts to uncover, so many that it’s a wonder I restrained myself from going online and looking up all the spoilers on Goodreads. I was fit to burst with everything I didn’t know: Why is the dead man’s wife convinced her husband’s devoted love was faked? What happened in Nicki’s childhood to make her like this? Who is following her? And most importantly: Why are my eyes so frustratingly slow over the page when I am desperate to figure these things out?

Fiona Hardy