You Can Trust Me is the new psychological thriller from Sophie McKenzie which explores multiple murders as well as the nature of relationships and marriage, and – not surprisingly from the title- who you can really trust.
Synopsis:
The suspicious circumstances of her best friend’s suicide drive a woman to the possibility that it was murder—a murder which might involve the same man who killed her sister eighteen years ago
On a quiet, gray, Saturday morning, Livy arrives at her best friend Julia’s flat for a lunch date only to find her dead. Though all the evidence supports it, Livy cannot accept the official ruling of suicide; the Julia she remembers was loud, inappropriate, joyful, outrageous and loving, not depressed. The suspicious circumstances cause Livy to dig further, and she is suddenly forced to confront a horrifying possibility: that Julia was murdered, by the same man who killed Livy’s sister, Kara, eighteen years ago.
Desperate to understand the tragedies of her past and hold her unraveling life together, Livy throws herself into the search for Kara and Julia’s killer, who she now believes is someone close to her family. But if that is true, who can she still trust? Damien, the man Julia was secretly dating? Leo, her husband’s boss and a close family friend? His son Paul, her husband’s best mate since college? Or Will, her own dear husband, who has betrayed her perhaps one time too many?
When Livy finally faces her sister’s killer, and he tries to force her to destroy her family with one horrible, impossible choice, she must finally decide: is she strong enough to trust herself?
Though there were quite a few interesting, convincing characters in You Can Trust Me, there was also a lot of secondary characters included in the story so some of them weren’t as fleshed out as others, but that’s to be expected. For example Julia, the friend of Livy who is killed at the beginning of the novel, is only presented through memories, so at some points in the novel I wondered if she was really who she seemed to be – and this only adds to the mystery!
Surprisingly enough I felt that the main character Livy was actually a little 2 dimensional, even though we heard most of the story from her point of view, and overall she just seemed a bit wooden. It seemed like Livy felt that her life was pretty dull and ‘normal’, apart from her sisters awful death years ago, but she didn’t DO anything about it until Julia died. Julia’s death was the catalyst for Livy to come alive and investigate the true cause of death but even then, her character fell a little flat.
There were a few people I thought of as the murderer, which I really liked as it kept me interested in the story, and it wasn’t until toward the end that I worked out who it was, a little bit before we found out properly. I don’t usually guess who the perpetrator is correctly so this was quite good for me! It certainly kept me guessing before that though, and I do love a whodunnit, particularly when you know it must be one of the characters you’ve probably already met (this isn’t really a spoiler, you’ll know this pretty much from the start of the book).
There were various twists and turns throughout that I enjoyed reading, as well as the sections told from the killer’s perspective. I liked trying to work out who they might be from the ‘clues’ that his person might have revealed in these sections. This really added an interesting alternative narrative to the story, especially as it offered a different perspective to Livy’s. Both of these moved along at a fairly quick pace, though quite a bit of Livy’s story was centered around her and Will’s marriage, and I found this quite interesting though hard to read about- especially the parts about Will’s affair, as I found that quite depressing to read about. At these points I did feel really sorry for Livy and felt more empathy with her than at other times.
In general the story wasn’t that original in my opinion, but it was still a fast-moving and enjoyable thriller that kept me wondering who ‘did it’. It was pretty easy to follow and I really enjoyed reading it- I must have done as I got through it in about 24 hours!
I’d recommend this for anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers and fancies a quick, entertaining read!
Rating: 3.5/5
** Many thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this novel in return for an honest review. **