Her Deadly Secret by Chris Curran

I am delighted to be today's stop on the blog tour for Her Deadly Secret by Chris Curran. Her Deadly Secret was published by Killer Reads on 21 July 2017.

Her Deadly Secret
By Chris Curran
Published by Killer Reads (21 July 2017)

Publisher's description

A young girl has been taken. Abducted, never to be seen again.

Joe and Hannah, her traumatized parents, are consumed by grief. But all is not as it seems behind the curtains of their suburban home.

Loretta, the Family Liaison Officer, is sure Hannah is hiding something – a dark and twisted secret from deep in her past.

This terrible memory could be the key to the murder of another girl fifteen years ago. And as links between the two victims emerge, Joe and Hannah learn that in a family built on lies, the truth can destroy everything…

My verdict
Her Deadly Secret is a twisty psychological thriller that gained pace halfway through.

The story focuses on the disappearance of a teenage girl and the impact it has on her family, liaison police officer and sister of a girl who was murdered 15 years earlier. The first half of the book is a slow-burning build up, establishing the background of the characters, main plot and setting, and I did wonder at first if it was going to be a book for me.

However, I'm very happy that I persevered. The second half of the book is written at a much faster pace, filled with revelations, twists and turns. These two families are tied together by circumstances, lies and secrets. Alternating narratives by the different characters gradually revealed that everything in the first half that seemed so straightforward wasn't straightforward at all.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Follow the Blog Tour

BEST OF CRIME with Chris Curran

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

CHRIS CURRAN

to share her BEST OF CRIME ...

 

... AUTHORS

If I have to pick just one author then it’s Cathi Unsworth because she is a writer I always recommend to friends and one who I think should be better known. Her novels are set in the recent past and they have a dark and dirty glamour that is utterly compelling.  Along with the kind of sharp writing and twisty plots that characterize the best crime novels they also have that elusive quality – real heart. 

... FILMS/MOVIES

I’m fascinated by how our memories function, or fail to function, and all my books so far have featured characters struggling with some aspect of memory. So a film that really resonates with me is Memento. It’s a brilliantly constructed story that takes a fairly standard idea – a protagonist trying to track down his wife’s killer – and turns it into something incredibly rich and complex. The twist is that the hero suffers from what’s called anterograde amnesia brought on by the trauma of the attack. He is unable to form new memories and suffers short-term memory loss every few minutes. It’s a film that plays with the viewer’s own perceptions of how time works and I’d recommend watching it on DVD because it rewards multiple viewings. 

... TV DRAMAS

I was completely hooked by Happy Valley.  It makes a refreshing change to have a uniformed police officer, who is also a woman, at the centre of a crime drama. Instead of a crumpled male loner, Sarah Lancashire is totally convincing as the matriarch of an extended family and the moral heart of her local community. The series has everything: a terrifying villain, heartbreaking tragedy and a sprinkling of black humour.    

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

My favourite Christie novel is the standalone mystery written in the 1960s: Endless Night. In order not to give the game away I’ll just say that the killer in the book is one I find very intriguing. 

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES 

C.J. Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer practising during the reign of Henry V111. Like so many great fictional detectives he is an outsider. A hunchback at a time when such a disability is regarded with suspicion and disgust, Matthew bears his frequent humiliations with admirable fortitude always trying to do his best for his ordinary clients at the same time as attempting, usually unsuccessfully, to avoid getting tangled up with the royals and their entourage. 

... MURDER WEAPONS

Like many real murderers from her era, Agatha Christie uses poison very creatively. In Dumb Witness the victim is killed by phosphorus and her dying breath appears as a cloud of vapour that the witnesses imagine is her soul escaping from her body. 

    

... DEATH SCENES

Mark Billingham’s villain in Sleepyhead doesn’t want to kill his victims, but to render them helpless forever. After some false starts, where the women die, he succeeds with Alison and his attack leaves her with locked-in syndrome. As readers we are allowed into her thoughts and discover that she is a vibrant and courageous girl. Only able to blink, she nevertheless helps detective Tom Thorne to identify her attacker. But she has no hope of recovery and realizes that the only way she can outwit the villain is to frustrate his desire for her to stay alive. The final pages are incredibly moving. 

  

... BLOGS/WEBSITES
A blog I always find inspiring is Lizzy Kremer’s Publishing For Humans. It appears on occasional Mondays and is a series of beautifully written musings on writing from a successful literary agent (not my agent by the way).

... WRITING TIPS
Monotonous but satisfying chores are perfect for solving plotting problems providing you don’t actively think about them and instead let solutions float up from the unconscious. I find ironing is effective in cold weather and some mindless gardening, like weeding or grass cutting in the summer.  

... WRITING SNACKS

Endless mugs of Earl Grey tea and the occasional slice of toast with crunchy peanut butter. 

About CHRIS CURRAN

Chris Curran was born in London but now lives in St Leonards-on-Sea near Hastings, on the south coast of England, in a house groaning with books. She left school at sixteen to work in the local library – her dream job then and now – and spent an idyllic few months reading her way around the shelves. Reluctantly returning to full-time education, she gained her degree from Sussex University. Since then she has worked as an actress, script writer, copy editor and teacher, all the time looking forward to the day when she would see her own books gracing those library shelves.

Find Chris Curran on her website, FB page and on Twitter - @Christi_Curran

About HER DEADLY SECRET

Publisher's description

A young girl has been taken. Abducted, never to be seen again.

Joe and Hannah, her traumatized parents, are consumed by grief. But all is not as it seems behind the curtains of their suburban home.

Loretta, the Family Liaison Officer, is sure Hannah is hiding something – a dark and twisted secret from deep in her past.

This terrible memory could be the key to the murder of another girl fifteen years ago. And as links between the two victims emerge, Joe and Hannah learn that in a family built on lies, the truth can destroy everything… 

Her Deadly Secret was published by Killer Reads on 21 July 2017.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

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