An English thriller, set in Bristol, England in the present, we inhabit the mind of middle age Joe O'Loughlin, a father separated from his wife, struggling to communicate with his teen age daughter, a retired psychiatrist who lectures at the local university. His life is a mess and it only gets more complicated when his daughter's best friend, Sienna, is accused of murdering her father. In his attempt to help Sienna, Joe gets dragged into the maelstrom of sexual predators, dirty politics, racial hatred, and murder. Because he has worked with the local detective Ronnie Cray, on other cases, he gets dragged into things he can hardly imagine. For starters, Sienna is a cutter, and most likely has been sexually abused by her father, thus her motive. Joe and his buddy, retired detective Ruiz, don't believe she's guilty, mostly because Sienna has been good friends with his daughter Charlie, for years, spent nights at their house, is like a second daughter. As he gets closer and closer to the crime, he is pulled in to a trial of Neo Nazis, who have fire bombed the home of some immigrants. And, as he gets deeper and deeper, his search takes him back to his daughter Charlie's school, to the drama coach, the handsome suave Ellis, who has a history from past schools. While this is going on, we also see Joe's marriage crumbling, his daughter fed up with him, and his attempts to deal with Parkinson' Disease, which has appeared a couple of years ago. As he attempts to repair these relationships, he begins to make connections between the racists defendants in the trial, the drama teacher Ellis, and Ellis's relationship with the accused teenager Sienna. It turns out Ellis is a serial child abuser and, to save his life, he gets involved with the Neo Nazis, their leader who was his roommate in college. Things do seem too coincidental but I did like Joe, his insights into others, especially the young, and himself, as he tries to make sense of a world that makes no sense. The foreword quotes Mark Twain: "Everybody lies---every day, every hour, awake; asleep; in his dreams, in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his toes, his eyes, his attitude, will convey deception." Joe finds this to be very true as he travels into this morass and makes the best of it, though he ends up hurting not only others in his search for the truth but himself and his family. Maybe he should have left well enough alone. Robotham is highly thought of on the continent, has won various awards for his thrillers and I am ready to read another of his acclaimed novels, LOST or SHATTER, both which won prizes.
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