I have three days to kill a patient. If I fail, my daughter will die…
As the only doctor on a stunning remote Scottish island, I finally feel safe and happy. Here, nobody knows about my troubled past except my teenage daughter Lauren. I'm a single mother, so it’s just the two of us now, and Lauren is my world.
Caring for every person on the island, from birth to death, I know all their fears and secrets. But they don’t know mine, and for the sake of my daughter, I must keep it that way…
Everything is going perfectly until I am sent a link to a live video stream of my beautiful daughter Lauren, her wide blue eyes terrified. And there’s a voice:
‘Three rules. Three days.
You must murder one of your patients.
You must not tell another soul.
You must not get caught.
If you fail, your daughter dies…’
A jaw-dropping psychological thriller from multi-million copy bestseller J M Dalgliesh. This utterly addictive, pulse-pounding read is packed with twists you’ll never forget. Perfect for anyone who loves Freida McFadden, Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.
I'm delighted to be taking part in the Family Doctor by J.M. Dalgliesh Books on Tour today. Many thanks to Sarah Hardy from Bookouture for inviting me and for my advance copy of the book, received through Netgalley.
I can't quite believe this is the first novel I've read by J.M. Dalgliesh – it definitely won't be the last! This is a seriously addictive psychological thriller and so I strongly advise making sure you set aside some time to read it because it's a very difficult book to put down!
Family Doctor opens with a chilling prologue which sets the scene perfectly for what happens next. A young woman is on the verge of leaving her island home, musing that she needs to get away from her suffocating environment. It's immediately clear that something bad happened to her in the past and that her mother is still trying to protect her but exactly what took place isn't revealed until later in the book. However, her desire to strike out on her own is swiftly curtailed when a brief conversation with a stranger takes a terrifying turn...
Although the identity of the young woman isn't mentioned in the prologue, it is soon obvious that she is Lauren, the daughter of Jura's only medical practitioner, Kelly. Most of the novel is told from Kelly's first person perspective; her increasing desperation after she receives the devastating news that Lauren has been abducted and that she must make a dreadful decision to secure her release feels almost palpable. She is also clearly still haunted by a secret from her past which cleverly adds another layer of intrigue to proceedings.
Lauren's kidnapper sets her three rules if she wants to see her daughter alive again.
"You must murder one of your patients.
You must not tell another soul.
You must not get caught.
If you fail, your daughter dies…"
She is given just three days to decide what to do and if she so chooses, who to kill. It's the sort of impossible dilemma which will strike fear into the heart of everybody. In a hypothetical situation, most of us would say that we would do anything to protect our loved ones but could we really kill another innocent person? This is a really unnerving read throughout, particularly as it becomes evident that the person who has taken Lauren is watching Kelly and seems to know everything about her.
She has to try to act as normally as possible in order not to raise suspicions among the small island community but that's no easy task, especially when she attempts an investigation into who may have had cause to abduct Lauren.
With the clock ticking, the sense of tension is unbearable and it seems as though Kelly will have no choice but to become a killer herself. The insights we are given into her patients are grimly fascinating and it's uncomfortable to realise that readers are nearly as manipulated as she is into making a moral choice about who most deserves to die. It might appear as though the decision should be straightforward but there are practical as well as emotional considerations to be made and it's never obvious what she will eventually elect to do. Meanwhile, as the feeling of community on Jura which gave Kelly and Lauren some of the solace they so badly needed is cruelly taken from them, the vivid descriptions of this remote island and the atmospheric sense of place engendered is particularly impressive.
Although Kelly is a sympathetic character thrust into the most unimaginably horrific situation, there are indications throughout that she remains tormented by something terrible she did a few years ago. Alongside the main narrative, there are occasional chapters set in the past which gradually reveal the tragedy that changed everything for her family. Further dramatic revelations and horrific discoveries ensure the dynamic, pacy storyline is utterly compulsive, with a breathtakingly exciting, emotional and shocking conclusion.
J.M. Dalgliesh's first-rate thriller is packed with dark secrets and unsettling ethical quandaries from start to finish; Family Doctor is a riveting, nail bitingly suspenseful read and one I highly recommend.
Family Doctor is published by Bookouture. It can be purchased from Amazon and is available on Kindle Unlimited.
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About the Author
Rapidly establishing himself as one of the UK’s most read crime authors, the fifth book in the Hidden Norfolk series, Hear No Evil, was shortlisted for Amazon's Kindle Storyteller Award in 2020. His books have sold copies in sixty-eight countries to date. Work is underway to bring his books to the silver screen by a National Film Awards winning production team.
Born on the south coast of England, and growing up in Hampshire, Jason has lived and worked abroad as well as in Yorkshire and the Scottish Highlands. He currently lives in Norfolk with his partner and two young children. Penned in the style of crime thrillers with a touch of Scandinavian noir, Jason's books will appeal to readers who enjoy dark atmospheric mysteries.
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