Book Review - After The Accident by Kerry Wilkinson - Blog Tour

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Amazon UK

Title: After the Accident

Author: Kerry Wilkinson

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Bookouture

Publication Date: 31st March 2020

Rating: 5 Stars

Under a cloudless Mediterranean sky, two families wheel their suitcases past swaying palm trees towards their hotel to grab a spot by the pool. But behind the smiles, someone is hiding a terrible secret…

I never wanted to come on this trip. I thought the accident had torn us apart forever, but then my mother called out of the blue, wanting to make amends. So here we are, two families on a beautiful island, sipping sangria like nothing ever happened.

My parents’ oldest friend, Daniel, was invited too – I’ve never trusted him, and now he brings up my past mistake every chance he gets. And why does his son, Victor, keep disappearing off on his own?

Even my brother’s here, with his twins. It’s amazing to see my nieces playing happily in the pool. After what happened at home, it still hurts me to be around the girls, but more so that my brother doesn’t trust me alone with them.

Despite everything, it’s going surprisingly well – everyone forcing a smile at the dinner table, laughing at the twins’ antics – until the night my father is attacked on the beach, left for dead on the sand.

As always, all fingers point to me, but this time I know for certain that I’m innocent. And if I’m not guilty, someone else on this holiday is…

A unique and totally gripping psychological thriller that will have fans of T.M. Logan and The Girl on the Train racing through the pages late into the night.

I honestly can't tell you if I have just read a true crime novel,  a set of transcripts from a documentary, or if everything is completely fictional from the mind of a mastermind author.

However you wish to describe this book it is a wonderful experience, had me second guessing every word, had me googling to find out if the Greek island featured was even real.

Everything was incredibly convincing, so I'm still not sure whose accounts were the truth.

I know which character I want to believe,  and its the one I really got inside the head of.  But whether she is delusional or not I'm not completely sure.

It is though that got under my skin from the start and I found myself thinking about when I wasn't reading. 

It was largely in style and content unlike anything I've read before, and I do love originality in a story. 

I would dearly love to know the truth of what happened during those seven days in July but somehow I'm not even sure the author knows. 

It's the first book I've read by Kerry Wilkinson for a long while and now I'm wondering why that is.  Definitely need to read more in future and not just when the cover piques my interest.

100% worth reading this,  its fabulous. 

Thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

Book Review - Down Among the Dead Men by Kerry Wilkinson

Amazon UK

Title: Down Among the Dead Men

Author: Kerry Wilkinson

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Pan MacMillan

Publication Date: 22nd October 2015

Rating: 4.5 Stars

'I'm going to do you a favour: I'm going to tell you my name and then I'm going to give you thirty seconds to turn and run. If any of you are still here after those thirty seconds, then we're going to have a problem.'

Jason Green's life is changed for good after he is saved from a mugging by crime boss, Harry Irwell. He is then drawn into Manchester's notorious underworld, where smash and grab is as normal as making a cup of tea.

But Jason isn't a casual thug. He has a life plan that doesn't involve blowing his money on the usual trappings. That is until a woman walks into his life offering the one thing that money can't buy - salvation.

This was the first stand alone book I had read by Kerry Wilkinson. Previously I have read some of the Jessica Daniels series, so was aware of the possible quality of the writing. Down Among the Dead Men is a gritty look into Manchester's criminal underworld. 

The first chapter introduces us to a young Jason Green who is trying to escape being mugged for his brand new trainers, he takes a bit of a beating and is saved by Harry Irwell, who is a notorious crime boss for the south side of Manchester. 

The action then switches to the present day and we see Jason as an adult, clearly now working under Harry's influence. He also has to look after his mother and try to keep an eye on his brother too, who can be a bit unreliable. 

I can't help but feel that Jason isn't intentionally a criminal but has been sucked in and manipulated to become who he currently is, and after he meets two different women and spends a bit of time with both of them, he starts to question everything. 

I loved Jason's idea of an escape plan, and was very impressed with the big bucks being paid in the criminal world in Manchester. 

It didn't take long for me to be fascinated by the story, its a world so far removed from my own, but yet the writing really drew you in, and I was finding the further into the book I was, the more gutted I was when I had to put it down for real life to proceed. 

If you have read any of the Jessica Daniel series, I can say that this book is quite different, for starters it doesn't have a police presence, and this is far more from the criminal point of view, than law enforcement, however what they have in common is a talented author who is capable of drawing you into a world where crime is rife. 

Thank you to Pan MacMillan and Netgalley for this review copy. This was my honest opinion.