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Wednesday 11 January 2017

Book Review - Watch Me by Angela Clarke

Amazon UK
Title: Watch Me
Author: Angela Clarke
Format reviewed: Paperback
Source: Publisher supplied review copy
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: 12th January 2017
Rating: 5 Stars


YOU HAVE SIX SECONDS TO READ THIS MESSAGE…

The body of a 15-year-old is found hours after she sends a desperate message to her friends. It looks like suicide, until a second girl disappears.

This time, the message is sent directly to the Metropolitan Police – and an officer’s younger sister is missing.

DS Nasreen Cudmore and journalist Freddie Venton will stop at nothing to find her. But whoever’s behind the notes is playing a deadly game of hide and seek – and the clock is ticking.

YOU HAVE 24 HOURS TO SAVE THE GIRL’S LIFE.
MAKE THEM COUNT.

Speechless and breathless I think best describes how I feel moments after finishing reading Watch Me. Over the past few hours of real life I have been taken on a fast paced race against time that lasts just 24 hours, and it was compelling reading at every single chapter. 

Until I read Watch Me, I don't think I had ever fully understood Snap Chat, but now I know the basics, I can see just how great it is to be able to send short video clips that basically self destruct after a set period of time, and are then not recoverable, making it all the harder for anyone to track critical clips such as suicide notes or threats of life. But that is just the way this story starts, and the Metropolitan police have just 24 hours to find Lottie still alive. 

Lottie is an officer's younger sister so there is even more pressure than normal on the team to solve this case as quickly as possible. Watch Me sees the return of DS Nasreen Cudmore who is part of the team, and when she spots a couple of potentially critical clues, she insists on getting her friend Freddie Venton involved too, as she is great at technology. 

If you have read Follow Me, Angela Clarke's first social media murder book, then you will be familiar with Freddie and Nasreen, and it will fill in some background to the pair of them,. If you haven't then Watch Me can still be read as a fabulous standalone novel. 

There is a lot going on in Watch Me, and its a great indicator as to just how hard the Police do work 24/7 to track down the bad guys. In this book, I was amazed to realise that I wasn't trying to get ahead of the detectives in the book and work it out for myself, more was just swept up in the action, and was happy to learn things at their pace. Often I try to guess "who did it" but I didn't have a clue where to start, which thankfully was not the case for the detectives investigating 

I felt as though I was alongside Nasreen at every single turn, every decision or new piece of information. I was enthralled by what I was reading, and couldn't turn the pages fast enough to see just what would happen next. 

Due to the 24 hour countdown, there a real urgency to everything in the story, which comes across very well, and gave Watch Me the sort of pacing I love in a book, where you are thrown into the action quite early on, and then as you get to know more, it becomes a lot more intense. 

Watch Me is definitely one to watch in 2017, and I loved every second of it. 

Thank you so much to Avon for this copy of the book, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

1 comment:

  1. Phew! Well, after your outstanding review, I pre-ordered, Rachel. This looks like one I really have to read. Thanks! Well done, Angela. It sounds fab! :) xx

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