Book Review: Where She Lies by Caro Ramsay

  Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Servern House via #netgalley, 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

A celeb wedding venue. A life gone viral. A dead It Girl. The stunning new DCI Christine Caplan thriller from critically acclaimed author Caro Ramsay, who has "a place in the upper echelons of Scottish crime writing" (Financial Times).

Synopsis:

Koi, ex-supermodel and face of lifestyle brand the Sunflower Company, is #livingmybestlife in a Scottish castle with her famous family of nepo babies and influencers. Everything they do is posed, filtered and spun for the perfect story. Even when Koi is found on the rocks at the foot of a cliff, the media juggernaut rolls on, with the image of her body, battered and bleeding, splashed across every social platform around the world.

DCI Christine Caplan’s job is simple – did Koi fall, jump or was she pushed? Only the family knows what really happened that night and, as with everything in their lives, they’re only willing to engage with reveals they can stage. With the world’s press breathing down her neck, Caplan must figure out what’s real, what it takes to survive in the public eye, and how the truth of a story lies in the telling. As Caplan begins to see through Koi’s glossy facade, she realizes just how close to the edge she was, and how easy it can be for one misstep to bring everything crashing down . . .

This gripping Scottish police procedural meets twisted psychological thriller, featuring a complex and fascinating female protagonist, is a perfect choice for fans of tartan noir and authors Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and Elly Griffiths.

Review:

Ramsay can be counted on for a great police procedural with a twist here or there, and she does it again in this 4th book of the CI Caplan series. Caplan is sent in to make the death go away quickly, to keep a media uproar at bay. But the victim's family has other ideas-media influencers at their peak, old habits die hard for them, even in their grief. But is it grief? The family business rules all is rubbing Caplan the wrong way, and she senses something is off in the castle, and there is much more to the death than it appears. As she and her team keep finding subtle clues, it soon becomes a race against time to keep any more harm coming to other members of the family, as the truth comes out. A real page turner for the last third of the book, don't miss this stand alone book of the series!

About the Author

Caro was born in Govan, on Glasgow's south side. A graduate of the British School of Osteopathy, she runs a large osteopath centre in West Scotland, treating animals and humans, and writes in her spare time.

Her first novel Absolution was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2008 and her second Singing to the Dead was longlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2010. The third in the series, Dark Water, was published on 4 August 2010, and the fourth book The Blood Of Crows was published on 30 August 2012. Critic Cathi Unsworth in The Guardian opined that Ramsay's series "excels in sense of place, realism, plotting and caustic humour", describing it as "Bleak, black and brilliant".  Ramsay was the subject of a 2007 BBC documentary film, and appeared on STV show The Hour in 2010.