#BlogTour-‘Never Be Broken’ by Sarah Hilary

About the book…

‘Deeply contemporary, painfully real, heartbreakingly good’ Mick Herron

The compulsive, gripping and twisty new London crime novel featuring DI Marnie Rome, from awardwining novelist Sarah Hilary
Children are dying on London’s streets. Frankie Reece, stabbed through the heart, outside a corner shop. Others recruited from care homes, picked up and exploited; passed like gifts between gangs. They are London’s lost.
Then Raphaela Belsham is killed. She’s thirteen years old, her father is a man of influence, from a smart part of town. And she’s white. Suddenly, the establishment is taking notice.
DS Noah Jake is determined to handle Raphaela’s case and Frankie’s too. But he’s facing his own turmoil, and it’s becoming an obsession. DI Marnie Rome is worried, and she needs Noah on side. Because more children are disappearing, more are being killed by the day and the swelling tide of violence needs to be stemmed before it’s too late.

‘‘Never Be Broken’ is a stunning, intelligent and gripping novel which explores how the act of witness alters us and reveals what lies beneath the veneer of a glittering city.

Ok, I don’t know how this has happened but I appear to have missed one of the books in the series(unforgiveable!). ‘Never Be Broken’ starts with a gasp inducing act that throws you into the story, front and centre, before back tracking to 48 hours earlier and a gut punch of a revelation-not being spoilt here for anyone who hasn’t got this far in the ‘DI Marnie Rome series-that left me weak.

Having said that, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves great writing, tense and intense plotting as well as sublime characterisation. You do not need to have read up to this point to feel the swell of anger and rage at a senseless act which leaves a good man,Noah Jake, griefstricken. Here, DI Marnie Rome comes into her own, having made a full circle from her own refusal of help, to being the one to offer it to a colleague .

It is a very London centric novel, there is absolute sense of time and place which acutely emphasises the social issues that the police and the justice system currently face, versus those that the public do . The death of the ‘wrong type of victim’ , the daughter of a white man of influence is suddenly a matter of media clamouring for justice whereas the children killed with different colour skin were disposable and forgettable.

The sheer level of outrage I felt as a reader, as a mother, as a human being is incredible. All of these children deserved full and transparent investigations of their lives and deaths, the idea that one child’s life is to be valued over another, is sickening. The challenges that Marnie has in making sure all of the investiagtions are correct and above board, whilst supporting her colleague and addressing the concerns of the public are a tightrope balancing act like no other. The public perception of the police, as well as her own professionalism is at stake like never before.

Sarah Hilary excels at creating pencil sketches of her characters, giving you enough room as a reader to shade them in and then take them to your heart and make them your own . These are people who you do not forget easily, ‘Never Be Broken’ absolutely has the power to break you, so real are these families who have lost their children. And the hunt for those who exploit and recruit the vulnerable, the forgotten ones, the ones who are looking for somewhere to belong…it’s a cruel and devastating reality which is brough home to the reader with a quiet dignity, it is not forced in your face-the anger undulates as the facts are laid out before you. These missing children matter and their lives need to be recorded and marked, not brushed away and forgotten about. It’s a compelling, hardhitting read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

My thanks, once more, to Anne Cater of Random Things, Jenni Leech at Headline Books and Sarah Hilary , for giving voices to those who no longer have them.

About the author…

Sarah Hilary’s debut, ‘Someone Else’s Skin’, won Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection for 2016. The Observer’s Book of the Month (‘superbly disturbing’) and a Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, it has been published worldwide. ‘No Other Kindness’, the second in the series was shortlisted for a Barry Award in the US. Her DI Marnie Rome series continued with ‘‘Tastes Like Fear’, ‘Quieter Than Killing’ and ‘Come And Find Me’.

Links-https://www.bathshortstoryaward.org/2016/03/31/interview-with-sarah-hilary/

http://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/p/services-to-publishers-authors-blog.html

Twitter @sarah_hilary

@headlinepg

@annecater