Don't let him under your skin. He'll destroy you.
Don't fight him. He'll win.
Run. Never let him find you.
I thought I was safe here, but I'm not. I've stayed too long. Now Genevieve is dead, and the police are on their way. It's time for me to go.
I must stick to the plan - the one I made the day I arrived in this city. My bag is packed. It always is. I will destroy every shred of evidence of my existence. The police must never find me. If they do, so will he.
I made a mistake, and someone had to die. But I'm the one who has truly lost her life.
I need to make a choice. If I keep running, I'll never stop. If I go back, he will make me suffer.
How many lives can one person ruin?
A Tom Douglas thriller
Close Your Eyes by Rachel Abbott was published on 11 February 2021 by Black Dot Publishing. My thanks to the author who sent my copy for review, as part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour.
Rachel Abbott's debut thriller, Only the Innocent, was an international bestseller, reaching the number one position in the Amazon charts both in the UK and US. This was followed by the number one bestselling novels The Back Road, Sleep Tight and Stranger Child,Nowhere Child (a short novel based on the characters from Stranger Child), Kill Me Again, The Sixth Window, Come a Little Closer, The Shape of Lies and Right Behind You. Close Your Eyes - the 10th in the Tom Douglas series - was released in February 2021.
Close Your Eyes is the latest in the long-running Tom Douglas thriller series, and whilst I haven't read all of the previous books featuring Tom, I've enjoyed every single one of those that I have read.
Tom is called out to the scene of a murder. It's early in the morning and his colleague Becky's phone call wakes him from his sleep. The body of a woman has been found in an alley, not far from her own home. It's a strange case. The woman's husband returned home from a business meeting and thought his wife had gone to bed. It was only much later that he realised she was not in the house and using a tracking app on her phone, he discovered her bloodied body.
Nobody can understand why Genevieve Strachan would leave her home, late at night, wearing high heels, and end up battered and stabbed. Murdered just minutes away from her own front door, with no clue as to why.
Genevieve's husband Niall is the CEO of a tech company, just about to break through with a highly advanced tracking app. His company, XO-Tech have a small workforce and when the investigation team visit the offices, it becomes clear that there's one person who doesn't want to be involved in any questioning. Martha Porter is the office manager, and whilst she knows everything there is to know about the workings of XO-Tech, not one of her colleagues knows the first thing about her. When Martha disappears, immediately after Genevieve's murder, she puts herself right into the limelight.
Close Your Eyes is far more than only a police procedural novel. Whilst the intricacies of the investigation are very well portrayed and the reader learns a lot about the team work involved, it is the sub-plot concerning Martha that really drives the story.
The author deals with some extremely serious and disturbing issues as the reader learns more about Martha, and her previous life. It becomes incredibly clear why she has created such an impenetrable world around herself, and why she desperately needs to flee from any intense scrutiny from outsiders.
It's cleverly and well thought-out, the police investigation ties in neatly with the revelations about Martha and doubts are cast throughout. The reader is taken on a twisting and turning road to what is a superb and satisfying conclusion to the entire story.
Close Your Eyes is dark, sharp and compelling. Tightly plotted and thrilling writing from an author who really does know how to tell a story. Recommended by me
In 2018 Rachel released the first book in a new series - And So It Begins. This was followed by The Murder Game in 2020 (The Invitation in the US).
Rachel's novels have now been translated into over 20 languages.
In 2015 Amazon celebrated the first five years of the Kindle in the UK, and announced that Rachel was the number one bestselling independent author over the five-year period. She was also placed fourteenth in the chart of all authors. Stranger Child was the most borrowed novel for the Kindle in the first half of 2015.
Rachel now lives in Alderney - a beautiful island off the coast of France - and spends a few months of each year in the Le Marche regions of Italy, where she devotes her time to her love of writing fiction. For more information, see Rachel's website at www.rachel-abbott.com, or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
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