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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2016, 384 pages
Paperback:
Nov 2016, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Donna Chavez
Buy This Book
The next blockbuster thriller for those who loved The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl.... a novel with "an astonishing intensity that drags you in and never - ever - lets you go." (Daily Mail, UK)
On a rainy afternoon, a mother's life is shattered as her son slips from her grip and runs into the street ...
I Let You Go follows Jenna Gray as she moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past.
At the same time, the novel tracks the pair of Bristol police investigators trying to get to the bottom of this hit-and-run. As they chase down one hopeless lead after another, they find themselves as drawn to each other as they are to the frustrating, twist-filled case before them.
PROLOGUE
The wind flicks wet hair across her face, and she screws up her eyes against the rain. Weather like this makes everyone hurry; scurrying past on slippery pavements with chins buried into collars. Passing cars send spray over their shoes; the noise from the traffic making it impossible for her to hear more than a few words of the chattering update that began the moment the school gates opened. The words burst from him without a break, mixed up and back to front in the excitement of this new world into which he is growing. She makes out something about a best friend; a project on space; a new teacher, and she looks down and smiles at his excitement, ignoring the cold that weaves its way through her scarf. The boy grins back and tips up his head to taste the rain; wet eyelashes forming dark clumps around his eyes.
"And I can write my name, Mummy!"
"You clever boy," she says, stopping to kiss him fiercely on his damp forehead. "Will you show me when you get home?"
They walk as quickly...
Sometimes it’s a reach to see how a book becomes an international bestseller. Other times – well, other times there’s Clare Mackintosh’s I Let You Go, and from page one you’re asking yourself, where has this terrific book been all my life?..continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author Lee Child
Astonishingly good. Catherine Coulter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Nemesis
Mackintosh's Brit police training added the right amount of gritty realism to this atmospheric thriller. Mark Billingham, author of Time of Death
A hugely assured and gripping debut and a twist that made me green with envy. Peter James, author of Want You Dead
A terrific, compelling read with an astonishing twist that floored me. Samantha Hayes, author of What You Left Behind
Addictive… one thrill after another.Clare Mackintosh's debut novel, I Let You Go, is inspired by an event – a hit-and-run accident – that happened early in the author's career as a police officer. Embarking on a work of fiction by using an actual event as inspiration is a common occurrence in books, movies and television. Note that this story is "inspired by" and not "based upon" a true-life event. There are distinct differences.
For example how often does someone read a snippet of a newspaper story, see a blurb on a news website, or even overhear a conversation on a bus or plane about something that leaves several open ended questions? Frequently fiction-writing teachers will throw such a news article out to their class and assign writing a story that the ...
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