I See You by Clare Mackintosh

This is an incredibly creepy story of a mother of two, Zoe Walker, who finds her face in the classifieds in the London Gazette. She is, understandably, both shocked and frightened. But due to the quality of the grainy image, her new partner, Simon and her children try to convince her that it is not her in that image, though they do see the stark resemblance.

Zoe, although wants to believe they are right, has her suspicions that something is terribly wrong. With no one taking her seriously, she gets the support of discredited detective, Kelly Swift. A detective who is dealing with her own demons. Kelly believes something sinister is indeed going on with the ads in the London Gazette and fights her corner. She swindles her way into Major Crimes Unit despite having been dishonoured due to an altercation with a criminal. (After learning more about why she did it, I was on her side). She cleverly unravels the mystery behind the findtheone.com website which impresses her seniors.

Kelly and Zoe soon make the association of a murder of a woman who was also linked to the classifieds in the London Gazette. This then leads to them uncovering a very sinister plot.

This is a very fast paced and sophisticated thriller. The author obviously did a lot of research around how online encryption and proxy servers work which was impressive. The story was told beautifully, and I honestly found it almost impossible to put down. Unlike Clare’s earlier book, I Let you go, I did manage to sus-out the mastermind around midway through the book. This did not take away from the chilling suspense and danger that I felt whilst reading.

This has very quickly become one of my favourite books and I am sure I will be talking and referencing it for many years to come.