Book Review: Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this book free of charge,from Random House via Edelweiss for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it,  all opinions are my own.


From the acclaimed author of Missing, Presumed, comes a brilliant crime novel ,  a complicated detective investigates her most personal case yet: a high-profile murder in which those she loves most become suspects.

persons unknown

Synopsis:

Detective Manon Bradshaw is five months pregnant and has officially given up on finding romantic love. Instead, she is in hot pursuit of work-life balance and parked in a cold case corridor—the price she’s had to pay for a transfer back to Cambridgeshire. This is fine, she tells herself. She can devote herself to bringing up her two children: her adopted twelve-year-old son, Fly Dent, and the new baby. Fly needed a fresh start—he was always being stopped and searched in London by officers who couldn’t see past the color of his skin. Manon feared that Fly, increasingly sullen and adolescent, was getting in with the wrong crowd at school, or that possibly he was the wrong crowd. Being home by five, for the sake of her children, is what Manon tells herself she needs.

Yet when a wealthy businessman is found stabbed close to police headquarters, Manon can’t help but sidle in on the briefing: The victim is a banker from London, worth millions. More dramatically, he was once in a relationship with Manon’s sister, Ellie, and is the father of Ellie’s toddler son.



The case begins to circle in on Manon’s home and her family. She finds herself pitted against the colleagues she once held dear: Davy Walker and Harriet Harper.



Can Manon separate what she knows about the people she loves from the suspicion hanging over them? Can she investigate the evidence, just as she would with any other case? With every fiber of her being, Manon must fight to find the truth.


Review:

Manon IS complicated- she 100% human- with all the fallacies, missteps and assumptions we all make. In thsi book she is a 'mother' to the teen she took in in the last book (book 1 of the series), and now hugely pregnant with a new baby. With no partner, she is learnign as she goes, as her suster is not around much. when suddenly a new case crosseds into her personal life and is way too close to home, Manon gets pushed to the edges and has to work the investigation from a new angle, in order to clear her family. Along the way she learns just how little she knowsn about her different family members, both good and bad. As her life alters in so many ways, she finds support whe she did not expect it, and as the case progresses, she can see a different life ahead of her. But will it happen? Only if she can solve the case! This is a great Summer read. that will have you rapidly tunring the pages at the pool! I can't wait to see what the next book in the series brings us


About the Author:

Susie grew up in north London, studied English at university and trained as a journalist. She worked in newspapers for 20 years, 11 of them on staff at The Guardian. Her first novel, Homecoming, was published by Faber & Faber to critical acclaim in 2013. Her second, Missing, Presumed was a Sunday Times bestseller which introduced detective Manon Bradshaw. It was a Richard & Judy book club pick and has sold 200,000 copies to date in the UK. Missing, Presumed was selected as one of the Guardian’s, Wall Street Journal’s and NPR's standout books of 2016. It was longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year. Persons Unknown, the sequel to Missing, Presumed, is her third novel. She has written extensively about losing her eyesight to Retinitis Pigmentosa (click the 'journalism' tab for these articles). She lives in London with her husband and two children and is currently working on a third Manon Bradshaw mystery. Check out her website for more info


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