No Place To Hide by J.S. Monroe

 

No Place to Hide by J.S. Monroe.

Published 13th April 2013 by Aries, Head of Zeus.

From the cover of the book:

You might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're not watching you.

Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers' mobile phones, city traffic cameras - he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a medical student.

Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he's long left behind. Until one of them, Clio - Adam's great unrequited love - turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making...

No Place to Hide is a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together the dark web, murder, and blackmail...

***********

From the outside, successful paediatrician Adam appears to have an idyllic life. He has a beautiful wife, and two young children, and they seem to live a contented existence in south London next to the wide open space of Greenwich Park. But Adam hides a secret about a tragedy that happened during his time as a medical student: a secret that makes him afraid he is being watched all the time, and the surveillance society that surrounds him feeds his paranoia.

Only two other people know what happened all those years ago, and when one of them walks back into his life 24 years later, he is sure it cannot be a coincidence. The arrival of Clio, the woman he was once obsessed with, heralds a series of increasingly worrying events that threaten to derail Adam's life... and to put him and his family in danger.

This is one of those psychological thrillers that plays on your worst nightmares, and it gripped me from unsettling start to breathtaking ending. Adam is a man who has made mistakes and these come back to bite him in sinister style. I cannot give too much away here, as it would spoil the beautifully crafted surprises that Monroe floors you with, but as the story flips back and forth between the present and 1998 when the fateful events of Adam's past are revealed, the terrifying pieces of the mystery come together in a way that chills you to the core. 

Intriguingly, Monroe takes the theme of Christopher Marlowe's tragic play Doctor Faustus, in which Clio and Adam play opposite each other in the most prophetic of ways as a temptress Mephistopheles and a foolish Faustus during a university production, and runs headlong into a timely scenario that scares the wits out of you. Adam has a very good reason to fear being spied upon, and his Faustian devil employs every technological trick, from spying software to the horrifying activities of the underbelly of the Dark Web, to give this morality tale a very modern twist.

At times, Adam's head is an uncomfortable place to be, but somehow his fight to redeem himself and protect his family gets under your skin, and by the time you reach the final stages of the story you are very much on his side. Clio is a totured enigma for almost the whole story, which adds delicious suspense, and allows Monroe to create a very satisfying twist and twist again ending on the wild clifftops in Cornwall that makes your heart race. My favourite character was Adam's friend Ji, who proves to be a valuable asset to have in his corner, and who adds some much needed comic touches to lighten the darkness.

I consumed this book in a single feverish sitting, unable to look away for a second. I have not read anything by J.S. Monroe before, but will certainly be looking out for more of his thrillers in the future!

No Place to Hide is available to buy now in hardcover and ebook formats.

Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Ransom PR for inviting me to join this blog tour.

About the author:

Jon Stock, writing under the name J.S.Monroe, is the author of five psychological thrillers, including the international bestseller, Find Me. Under his own name, he has written five spy novels, one of which, Dead Spy Running, was optioned by Warner Bros. He is currently the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford.

After more than 25 years in journalism, including two stints as Weekend editor of the Telegraph, and working as a foreign correspondent in New Delhi, Jon became full-time author in 2015.

He lives in Wiltshire with his wife, Hilary Stock, a fine art photographer, and is on the committee of Marlborough LitFest.