Review: I See You

I See You by Clare Mackintosh
Genre: suspense, mystery, thriller, contemporary
Publisher: Berkely
Date: February 21, 2017

Like millions of people around the world, Zoe Walker rides mass transit to and from work every day. The reality is that nothing about her really stands out from the crowd. If you saw her on the train or even on the street, you probably wouldn’t even give her a second glance. So it’s pretty startling for her when she notices an advertisement in the newspaper that looks like her. It rattles her enough to study the ad (which appears to be for a dating type site called findtheone.com) and bring it to her family. Though they agree it looks like her, everyone’s pretty dismissive about it and Zoe does her best to put it out of her mind.

Before long though, the image catches up with Zoe again in a very odd way. She realizes that another woman’s picture has appeared in a similar ad, but this time, she realizes that woman is connected to a crime report. Someone has stolen her keys. She contacts the police, but hours spent waiting come to pretty much nothing. Except that with more research she realizes there is at least one murder associated with these women who appear in the ads. Is she in danger as well?

My introduction to Clare Mackintosh’s work came with her book I Let You Go and I loved it. That book turned out to be a thrilling adventure packed with intrigue, suspense and mystery, so I was eager to check out this one and see if it followed suit.

This book is 384 pages of the same. Honestly, I ended up pulling an unintentional all-nighter reading it. A quick glance through my blog or this site shows that I read a lot. Mysteries make up a decent percentage of that reading so it’s not unusual for me to be reading and figure out the answers before the end. With both of Mackintosh’s books, I’ve been absolutely stunned at the outcomes. Plot twists don’t even come close to how incredibly crafted these stories are.

I See You bumped thriller/suspense up a notch in my books. I got to the end of this book and spent several hours running through the plot in my mind. Layers upon layers of mystery and drama were woven into this story. In all honesty, it left me completely creeped out. I work on the internet and I’ve done a great deal of work in sex trafficking, so it doesn’t surprise me to hear about depravity on the internet, but this plot was masterfully crafted, unique, and mind blowing. It’s hard to give away more than that without spoilers.

If you enjoy thrillers, suspense or mystery, put Clare Mackintosh on your list now. You won’t be sorry!