Book Summary and Reviews of When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham

When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham

When You Are Mine

A Novel

by Michael Robotham

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2022, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

In this page-turning psychological thriller from an author who Stephen King called "an absolute master," a young female police officer faces danger on all fronts - from a clever victim of abuse, her colleagues on the force, and even her own mobster father.

Philomena McCarthy is a young, ambitious police office with the elite Metropolitan Police in London. When she responds to a domestic violence call, she finds the victim, Tempe Brown, trying to protect her abuser, a married man named Darren Goodall, a decorated Scotland Yard detective afraid of no one. As Philomena pursues the case against him, she not only encounters resistance from her police force colleagues but also becomes dangerously entangled with the victim—who is not at all whom she appears to be—much to the increasing endangerment of herself and Henry, her fiancée.

Complicating matters is Philomena's estranged father Edward McCarthy, a powerful man who has built a criminal empire along with his brothers. Philomena has long tried to pursue her career as a police officer without her father's involvement, but as she falls under suspicion of stalking and harassing Goodall, her father becomes involved.

As the situation escalates, Tempe's sinister maneuvers further entangle Philomena in a web of secrets, corruption, and murder, putting Philomena's impending marriage, career, and very survival in jeopardy…​

Spellbinding, suspenseful, and filled with complex characters that could be heroes or villains, Robotham has crafted a smart and propulsive thriller that's impossible to put down.

Please be aware that this discussion may contain spoilers!

See what our members are saying about this book in our Community Forum.

What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
...Our Last Vineyard Summer by Brooke Lea Foster and The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny are both available to download. Great timing, as I had just completed When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham.
-Sunny

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"[E]xpertly-paced...Sidestepping all the clichés—the tough-girl humor is perfectly pitched and never overdone—the novel is as psychologically nuanced and emotionally engaging as it is suspenseful...A flawless and compassionate psychological thriller." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[A] nail-biter...Robotham tightens the screws on his sympathetic lead incrementally as the action builds to a satisfying climax. Lisa Unger fans will be riveted." - Publishers Weekly

This information about When You Are Mine was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Michael Robotham Author Biography

Michael Robotham is a former investigative journalist whose bestselling psychological thrillers have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has twice won a Ned Kelly Award for Australia's best crime novel, for Lost in 2005 and Shatter in 2008. His recent novels include When She Was Good, winner of the UK's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller; The Secrets She Keeps; Good Girl, Bad Girl; When You Are Mine; Lying Beside You; Storm Child; and The White Crow. After living and writing all over the world, Robotham settled his family in Sydney, Australia.

Author Interview
Link to Michael Robotham's Website

Other books by Michael Robotham at BookBrowse

14 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked When You Are Mine, try these:

  • The Walking Dead jacket

    The Walking Dead

    by Gerald Seymour

    Published 2008

    About this book

    A young man starts a journey from a dusty village in Saudi Arabia. An armed protection officer is charged with neutralizing the growing menace to London's safety. With intelligence and deep understanding, Seymour shows us the world in which we live, with all its dangers and complexities, and the choices we are forced to make.

  • He Who Fears The Wolf jacket

    He Who Fears The Wolf

    by Karin Fossum

    Published 2006

    About this book

    In spare, incisive prose Fossum turns a conventional police procedural into a sensitive examination of troubled minds and a disturbing look at the way society views them.

  • Suspect jacket

    Suspect

    by Michael Robotham

    Published 2005

    About this book

    The hunter becomes the hunted when an expert consultant in a baffling murder case becomes the prime suspect in this intricately crafted first novel.

We have 10 read-alikes for When You Are Mine, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
Who Said...

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.