Substitute by Susi Holliday

 

Substitute by Susi Holliday.

Published 12th August by Thomas and Mercer.

From the cover of the book:

Three people live. Three people die. You make the choice.

Like any mother, Chrissie wants to protect her family. She would do anything to keep them safe. So when a mysterious stranger turns up at her door, offering to prevent the deaths of the people she loves, it sounds too good to be true. The only problem: she must choose someone to die in their place. A substitute.

When her daughter Holly has a terrible accident, Chrissie has no option but to enter the programme. In that horrifying moment, she would do anything to save her. But even after Holly makes a miraculous recovery, Chrissie is convinced it’s just a coincidence. After all, who can really control the laws of life and death?

But as the dangers to her family escalate and her chosen substitutes begin to disappear, Chrissie finds herself in an underworld of hidden laboratories and secretive doctors. And the consequences of playing by their rules are far deadlier than she ever imagined…

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Chrissie is a young woman who has never really recovered from the trauma of losing her mother, especially since she was not at her side when she died - something that she blames her father for, causing a rift between them that has made them estranged from each other for many years.

With the birth of her daughter Holly, Chrissie's unresolved grief triggers post-natal depression, and although Holly is now nursery age Chrissie has not been able to get her life back on track since. She spends her days working from home sporadically as a graphic artist when Holly is at nursery, rarely leaving the house, and her relationship with her husband is strained - thank goodness for her best friend Wendy, who takes charge of Holly during the week and is like another member of the family.

Chrissie's fears make her worry about the safety of her family more than most, so when a stranger called Joseph turns up at her door promising her the opportunity to ensure that her loved ones need never come to harm she is intrigued. Although she initially thinks this must be a scam, she is eventually persuaded to humour the mysterious Joseph by agreeing to accept his offer and nominates three loved ones to be protected under the scheme - there is only one catch... she must also nominate three other people to die in their place. Assured that no one really has the power over life and death, she thinks nothing more about what she has agreed to. 

When Wendy is badly injured in a car accident and the substitute Chrissie nominated dies of a heart attack, she puts it down to co-incidence. However, when Holly also becomes unwell and miraculously recovers too, she has no choice but to accept that everything she has agreed to is very real. Chrissie has become embroiled in something far bigger and more dangerous than she knows. Someone connected with the scheme is out for revenge and Chrissie's family are the target for his twisted schemes. As she tries to get to the bottom of what is going on, she uncovers a world of underground laboratories and murky government experiments that connect to her own past. What is really going on here?

I thoroughly enjoyed Susi Holliday's last book, The Last Resort (review HERE) with its compelling themes around the dark side of technology and social media, so I was very pleased to find this book is based upon another intriguing sci-fi premise - the notion that you can nominate another person to die in the place of a loved one.

The story plays out in three plotlines that weave together: the first introduces us to Chrissie and her family; the second brings in the mysterious Joseph with his complicated agenda; and the final storyline delves into the past with details of a secret scientific project that Chrissie's father was involved in. As you move back and forth between the points of view of Chrissie and Joseph in the present, and Chrissie's father in the past, you come to understand the hows, whys and wherefores  - and all three threads collide at the end of the book in a nightmarish sci-fi climax

Chrissie's domestic dramas are a bit predictable, and even though I can see where Holliday was going with this side of the story, I would have preferred a bit less of the relationship wrangling and more of a hard-edged sci-fi thriller, because those parts of the tale are very exciting indeed. The underlying concept of substituting one life for another is darkly entertaining, and Holliday clearly has a lot of fun with the mystery, science and revenge elements of the story, bringing in chilling themes around batty boffins who are tempted to tread where they really should not go, sinister government agencies consumed with power, and callous betrayals of friendship, which reminded me very much of the thrillers of Michael Crichton - and there is a lovely undercurrent of Stephen King at times too. These parts of the tale are tense and really gripping, and despite the slower domestic elements, do make the book quite a page-turner once it gets going.

This is a quick and fun read that will set your mind thinking, and I am looking forward to seeing where Holliday's imagination takes her next.

Substitute is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats from your favourite book retailer. 

Thank you to Susi Holliday for sending me an ecopy of this book in return for an honest review.

About the author:

Susi Holliday grew up near Edinburgh and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years before she started writing. A life-long fan of crime and horror, her short stories have been published in various places, and she was shortlisted for the inaugural CWA Margery Allingham Prize. She is the bestselling author of eight novels and a novella, several of them written as SJI Holliday. Along with three other female authors, she provides coaching for new crime writers.