What I will say I liked how she portrayed Mary, and the feelings she has about being a new mum struggling with her new role in life, I feel she captured that perfectly and did not go down the easy route of PND instead showing how you can have these feelings without it being something deeper, she actually showed a bit humour in this which made Mary less 2D than the other blah characters. Also liked the slight cosy crime feel I got from both Mary and Tim with their amateur detection though am not sure if the author meant them to read like that I suspect not. J'ADORE. 4.5/5 stars only because the "reveal" was obvious from the start. However, Claire's writing, character-building, and the original storyline kept me engaged. I'd recommend this to fans of thrillers such as DARK PLACES, JAR OF HEARTS, WATCH THE GIRLS, and IF I DISAPPEAR. Rachel works at a dog shelter and lives a quiet life in the UK. One day, she's taking her dog out for a walk and sees a dead body. It's the body of the wife of the man she's been seeing on the sly: Anna. Knowing she'll be seen as a suspect, she leaves the seen without telling anyone but then one of her scarves shows up by the body and she's implicated anyway. On the other timeline, in 2000, we see a girl named Casey working for a toxic family in LA as a nanny. A stressful job turns into a nightmare when the whole family is murdered and she's blamed as the suspect. The truths behind the two sets of murders converge, filled with all kinds of nasty secrets and lies, leading Rachel to hear the words she's hoped she'd never hear again: I KNOW YOU.

Mary is a mother of two children under the age of two. She feels like she hasn’t slept at all since her second was born. Mary is a mother of two who is on maternity leave and is in desperate need of some sleep. Her children keep her up at night. Tim, her neighbour is a former journalist who suffers from PTSD and can't sleep at night. These two are separately looking out the window one night and think they see something sinister occurring in one of the (abandoned) homes across the street. There is also a girl missing from the neighbourhood. Mary and Tim later bond and try to piece together what they saw that night and begin to connect it to the missing girl. As for the investigation, Mary and Tim weren’t very good at it, they just kept stumbling across situations, and it was frustrating that the police were doing nothing. As for the conclusion and what had happened to Samantha, this just fell flat and certainly wasn’t worth persevering with the book for. I do like Claire McGowan's books, but this took a while to grab hold of me. It settles down into what feels like quite an old-fashioned adventure whereby Mary and Tim, finding the police less than helpful, set about their own amateur investigation into the disappearance of a nineteen-year-old girl, Samantha. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way and ultimately it's all a bit far-fetched, but enjoyable enough. They talk & realise that the person they both saw looked like a local missing teenager, Samantha. Her family have been on the news recently begging for her safe return, & Tim & Mary fear she has been kidnapped & is being held in the empty house on Cliveden Road. The two of them report what they have seen to the police but nothing much comes of it, so they decide to continue their own investigation. For Mary it's a chance to have something for herself outside of motherhood, whilst for Tim, it's the first time he's been interesting in anything (apart from stalking his ex-wife) for a long time. Can they trust each other though, & given their respective issues, can they even trust themselves?Reading about breast feeding, crying children, food being thrown, and dirty nappys always bores me to tears as a woman who is childless by choice. And, the decisions she would make while her children were in tow would not win her any “mother of the year” awards. So, I found myself wanting to skim through half of the chapters for that reason. As I read on though, some things really got to me. Mary is supposedly an attorney, but she asks the simplest questions about crime and evidence. Also, Mary’s husband is actually kind of the worst and I just could not stand reading about how terribly unhelpful he was. I actually wanted to slap the man through the book. What a dud. This was a great premise, interesting and suspenseful, and very well-executed by McGowan. Speaking of executions, one thing I really appreciated about this novel is the way it took a look at America’s barbarous (in comparison to England) justice system and the experiences of women on death row. This was really thoughtfully done and had an impact that I wasn’t expecting from what I thought was the usual fast-paced psychological thriller. The author did great research on capital punishment in America and the scenes on death row were touching and thought-provoking. (The only note I would give her is that most executions in California are done at midnight.)

I was in such a murder mystery mood from the middle of August until a couple a weeks ago - that was practically all I wanted to read. So I did. But with her marriage under strain and the police on their tail, Mary begins to doubt her own mind…and Tim’s. And as the pair are drawn into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, the culprit appears to be even closer to home than they thought. Have they got it all wrong, or is something even more sinister going on? Rachel is a typical heroine in these types of books; she's annoying, frustrating, and whines often. I like the characters in this book. It's told from Mary and Tim's POV as you get to know each. I was a bit disappointed in the ending though. To me it seemed to just happen and then that was that. No real closure maybe. Or explanation. Something was just missing. Rachel, the heroine, was well-drawn and sympathetic without being goody-goody or perfect - a normal, slightly irresponsible 19-year-old girl who finds herself accused of a terrible crime, and comes face to face with all the prejudices and tabloid media unfairness that come with being an attractive young girl who has not yet found her adult self and who os suddenly accused of being a murderer. Though I had the ending figured out early on, it was one of those books where the journey to that ending was suspenseful, fun and logical. Though there were other red herrings and possibilities for both the old and the new murder, the ending and resolution to each crime was satisfying and I wouldn’t have wanted to see it end any other way.

Though Mary's occupation as a lawyer isn't convincing enough to add depth, it did not really matter to me as the story is super good. If you seek a clever and atmospheric thriller to curl up with, make it this one. I kept really wanting something exciting and gripping to happen, but it didn’t; it was very disappointing. The characters are conflicting. I like them, but not all of them. When I think of it, the flaws in them should make them feel more realistic, but some decisions did not appeal to me, which explains why I am not a big fan of the main characters. We have theses two characters both who are sleep deprived for different reasons trying to solve the mystery of a missing girl after they both are sure they saw her in the attic room of a house across from them which leads them getting into all kinds of trouble, I liked this idea but I didn’t find it terribly believable. I read this book in one sitting . Im ashamed to admit it but I’ll own it, i didnt even shower today! I just couldn’t spare 5 minutes away from this book. I was completely consumed and nothing was going to get in my way.