Link: Amazon, Goodreads. Price: £11.95
Sarah Parker is a newly qualified criminal psychologist with the opportunity of a lifetime: a secondment to the Manhattan Police Department that, if she does well, could turn into a permanent position as their resident psychologist. She is dropped in the middle of an unresolved case: that of the notorious killer Jacob Perry, who seems to have some pattern to his murders that has yet to be discovered.
This is a novel and a character with an interesting agenda. Forgiveness is at the heart of Sarah’s attitude to life and her attitude to crime. This is an interesting and exciting dynamic, as crime thrillers often steer away from moral grey zones. Yet any decent lawyer has studied the power of rehabilitative justice and knows there is no black and white.
Of course, this is a romance novel, and here it provides some interesting twists. There’s an obvious tension with one of the police officers, enhanced by their difference of opinion about forgiveness, then suddenly there’s a whacking great twist and the book goes in an unexpected direction.
I wasn’t always comfortable with the story, which I imagine is part of the point. If you like bad boys with hearts of gold than this may be in your territory – although it was a bridge too far for me, it was a hell of a concept for a romance! Equally, if you like a book that makes you think about criminal justice, a book that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and not even sure how you want the book to end, try this out.
Keep No Record has a sequel, Broken Together, but works fine as book on its own.
