Book Review: Now You See Me by S. J. Bolton

This is the third book (of four) that I’ve read by this author. The other two are Sacrifice and Awakening (click on the titles to see my reviews). Now You See Me is darker than the other two books, but also the better story of the three. Since writing this review, I read Dead Scared.

The other two books were about nice women living in nice, cosy villages whereas Now You See Me is about a tough-woman police officer working in London.

I very much enjoyed this book and I think it’s a high-quality thriller- Sharon Bolton has made it onto my list of Best Thriller Writers!

Now You See Me: What it is about

Lacey Flint is a policewoman in her late twenties who finds herself out on the street one night with another woman dying in her arms, a stab victim. Soon, it becomes clear that she is a Jack the Ripper copy-cat victim and that more deaths are to be expected.

Not only that, but the killer has a special focus on Lacey and she happens to be present whenever a new body is found. She becomes worried that she will be seen as a suspect herself.

Lacey and her team are running after the facts, until they can find a way to outwit the murderer. But how many more women will die before that happens?

Now You See Me: What I thought

I thought I’d had my fill of tough women protagonists, but Lacey was a very acceptable tough cookie with a past. A past that we find out about bit by bit.

Her direct antagonist was a police officer called Mark Joesbury who hated her as much as she hated him, until their hate turned into something else. He was an interesting character, and I would have liked to know a bit more about him.

The story was build up very well and it was watertight. It was interesting how Lacey compared the murders with the Jack the Ripper story and how she and the other police officers reasoned to try and predict what the killer was going to do next.

There are some revelations at the very end of the book that I could have done without as they didn’t add anything to a fine story.

A really good read that I absolutely recommend to anyone who enjoys reading thrillers.

Rating: 5/5

I got this book: through a twitter giveaway by the author

I read this in: English, the original language

Number of pages: 400

First published: 2011

Genre: thriller

Extra: I nominated this book for the Indie Lit Awards in the Mystery genre. Have you nominated your favorite books of 2011 yet?