Do you have any idea what the people you know are capable of? Bestselling author of All My Lies Are True, Dorothy Koomson, asks how well you can really know your neighbours. Fans of Lisa Jewell and Louise Candlish will rip through the pages of this addictive new thriller.
What if all your neighbours’ secrets landed in a diary on your doorstep?
What if the woman who gave it to you was murdered by one of the people in the diary?
What if the police asked if you knew anything?
Would you hand over the book of secrets?
Or … would you try to find out what everyone had done?
I Know What You’ve Done is the unputdownable thriller from the Queen of the Big Reveal.
It's the first Monday in June which means it's First Monday Crime time again and it's another fabulous line-up. Head to their Facebook page this evening (Monday 7th June) at 7:30pm BST to watch the live discussion between Imran Mahmood (I Know What I Saw), Jo Spain (The Perfect Lie), Dorothy Koomson (I Know What You've Done) and Patricia Marques (The Colour of Death) with Sophie Goodfellow moderating. Many thanks to Headline for my advance copy of the novel and to Joy Kluver for inviting me to review it for First Monday.
If a stricken neighbour collapsed in the street after turning up on your doorstep with a diary which they claim contains details of what everybody on the street has been up to, with a request to find out who tried to murder them and a warning to "trust no one", you'd immediately give the book to the police. Wouldn't you? Could you really resist not just having a look first?
Rae knows she should hand it over but she also acknowledges she is nosy and as she tells herself, Priscilla handed the diary to her so she obviously wanted her to look at it. She vacillates between reluctance and curiosity until making the inevitable decision to open the pages. If Rae is holding a book of secrets then the same could be said for I Know What You've Done. With chapters alternating between different residents of Acacia Villas, including extracts from Priscilla's diary, this is a slow-burning, almost voyeuristic peek behind the closed doors of an affluent, ordinary street in Brighton.
As Rae begins to discover what it was that Priscilla saw, the story extends to other characters revealing more about the lives they try to keep hidden from others. Bryony lives with her egotistical, domineering husband, Grayson and their two children, Lilly lives alone and isn't over her first love and even Priscilla herself has her secrets. Meanwhile, as Rae realises that idiom about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good about themselves may also extend to reading about themselves, she is forced to question everything she thought she knew regarding her own life.
The secrets and lies that led to Priscilla's appearance at Rae's front door and the mystery behind who tried to kill her underpins I Know What You've Done but this compulsive, multilayered novel is much more than an intriguing whodunnit. The emotional responses to what happens here are absolutely fascinating and Rae's increasingly confused reactions to the inflammatory diary are particularly interesting. As the story progresses, it becomes obvious that something dramatic occurred in the past which still affects her to this day. Her anxiety is plain to see and I thought the way in which she manages her condition so that it becomes a part of the family's life rather than controlling it was described with perceptive empathy.
Meanwhile, the chapters which follow other characters reveal how many of them are attempting to provoke change in their lives, even at the expense of others. There are different reasons for the choices they make; without giving anything away, there is one particular neighbour who I hoped would find a way out while I kept my fingers crossed that others would get what they deserved too. Although much of the novel is concerned with what has already happened, there are some shocking scenes which take place in the present. It's worth mentioning that while the sex is explicit, the violence isn't - however, there is no ambiguity as to what occurs here.
I Know What You've Done is a compelling domestic noir thriller; packed with simmering tension, dark twists and with an insightful, involving plot that meant I raced through the pages in a day, I thoroughly recommend it.
I Know What You've Done will be published by Headline on 8th July 2021, pre-order links can be found here or ask your favourite independent bookstore to order it for you.
About the Author
Comments
Post a Comment