TRUST IN ME is a psychological thriller, in which Livy finds her best friend Julia dead, but doesn't believe that she committed suicide, as it seems. Livy is married to Will, and has two children, Zack and Hannah. She'd been Julia's friend ever since her sister Kara was raped and murdered, when at university. In fact, it was Kara's death that had brought them together. Livy feels guilty because she didn't respond to Julia's text message asking her to talk to her shortly before she overdosed, but she just can't believe that her thirty-six-year-old and full of life friend had really wanted to commit suicide. Clearly the reader is expected to find this incredible as well, as interspersed chapters follow the murderous progress of a person unknown, the one who is probably responsible for Julia's death, detailing all of his murders, all cleverly covered up, including that of Kara.

The first half of the novel works well in that it gives an absorbing account of how Livy doesn't know whom to trust, while she tries to find out what really happened to Julia. She hooks up fairly quickly with Julia's boyfriend 'dirty blond', who also seems keen to help Livy find out who killed Julia and why, but he seems to be a bit of a shady character. Is he really trustworthy, or could he be the killer? Livy also finds it difficult to trust her husband Will. He had had a brief affair some six years before with a business colleague called Catrina. She thinks they have put this behind them, but Will had been away on a business trip with her, on the same night that Julia committed suicide, and one of the other people on the trip claims to have seen Will kissing Catrina, something Will vigorously denies. Can she trust him, or not?

This play off between Livy's relationship with the two men, her relationship with her family, and in particular her difficult teenage daughter Hannah, together with her own paranoia and the timing of various events that occur as the story unfolds works well. But, then towards the latter half of the book, and particularly the few plot twists that occur leading up to the discovery of the identity of the killer, it is less believable, for reasons hard to describe without giving away the plot. However, a 'page-turner' of a novel, nonetheless, with some very good elements to it, and definitely one for the holidays!

Michelle Peckham, England
October 2014