I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Detective Jim Clemo is back on duty after some time off, and is immediately put on the case of a boy who is in a coma after falling into a canal. The only witness was his best friend, who is refusing to speak to anyone. As Clemo investigates deeper, he starts thinking there’s more to the story.

I loved being back with Jim Clemo, who was the lead detective in Gilly MacMillan’s debut novel Burnt Paper Sky/What She Saw. Hi is a pretty great detective to follow as he’s realy good at his job, but he also has some things going on in his life that are interesting but don’t distract from the main mystery of the story.

I think I actually liked this one better than Burnt Paper Sky, even though I also loved that one. There was something about this that I just thought it was tied together really, really well from the relationship between Noah and Abdi, to Abdi’s parents’ background and then Noah’s illness and how it shaped his personality a bit.

I thought the way Gilly wrote an emotionally manipulative friendship was really, really well done. It slowly unravels how obsessive Noah was with Abdi being only his friend but we also don’t get much answers about exactly what happened, and none of the glimpses we do have seem to make Noah out to be anything but a victim but there’s something there that just doesn’t add up.

I really liked the side twist about Abdi’s parents and their tough journey from refugees in Somalia to British residents. I liked that it was made clear they speak their own language in their home, and some of the ways in which they all feel vulnerable when out and about in public just because of the way they look (for example how Abdi’s sister and mom are treated for wearing hijabs, and how Abdi hides his face because he’s black when he and Noah bypass a group of men drinking late at night). We see the differences in privilege between Abdi and Noah on a number of occasions, and how Noah has no idea how Abdi has to always think about what he does because of how he could be treated because of the colour of his skin.

The ending of this may be a bit over the top for some people, but I really liked it. At that stage, I’d been reading the book all day so was in a high state of excitement and when it all blew off, i was so there for it.

The letters at the end definitely shocked me a bit but I liked how they proved

what an emotionally manipulative boy Noah was. Who WANTS their best friend to watch them take their own life. The fact he wanted to make his friend witness something so horrible, and felt like he was gifting him something, just proved to be that Noah was definitely not this sweetheart everyone else thought him to be.