Believe

Writing this review had to be delayed until I got my breath back after finishing this outstanding and extraordinary novel – and this isn’t a cliché. Believe is S. M. Govett’s debut adult crime thriller, and thrill it does. Having read law at Trinity College, Oxford and qualified as a solicitor, the author began her writing career in other fields including screenplays. Now she has exploded onto the psychological thriller scene.

The story opens with Natalie, a lawyer in her thirties, married to Ryan. Her life is now on a steady path, until she opens a poison pen letter that horrifyingly sweeps her back ten years. Her boss had assaulted her but in the trial that followed he was acquitted. Nevertheless the repercussions are now back with a vengeance to haunt her. Alice, one of Ryan’s employees, is found dead in a nearby wood, and Ryan is suspected of assault, just as Natalie’s assailant had been. Does Natalie believe Ryan when he pleads his innocence? Side by side with Natalie’s story runs that of DI Stratton who is in charge of the case. DI Stratton has problems of her own as her elder sister disappeared many years ago and Stratton is desperate to know what happened to her. No leaving her private life on one side for Stratton; she carries it with her which motivates her every move in tracking down Alice’s murderer.  

The pace of Believe is, well, unbelievable. Its twists and turns are breathtakingly fast and unforeseeable as the characters struggle with their dark thoughts and suspicions over whom to believe. No sooner does one twist change the storyline than the next one crops up, and yet every one works smoothly and believably, with the clues subtly masked all the way to the stunning conclusion.

“Believe?”

I believe that this author is here to stay.