#BookReview ‘In Safe Hands’ by J.P Carter

About the book…

When nine children are snatched from a nursery school in South London, their distressed parents have no idea if they will ever see them again. The community in the surrounding area is in shock. How could this happen right under their noses? No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything – or at least that’s what they’re saying.

But DCI Anna Tate knows that nothing is impossible, and she also knows that time is quickly running out. It’s unclear if the kidnappers are desperate for money or set on revenge, but the ransom is going up by £1million daily. And they know that one little boy in particular is fighting for his life.

It’s one of the most disturbing cases DCI Anna Tate has ever worked on – not only because nine children are being held hostage, but because she’s pretty sure that someone close to them is lying…

This novel, ‘In Safe Hands’ by J.P Carter, is the first in the 3 published novels so far featuring DCI Anna Tate. It made such an impact that on finishing, I immediately tracked down the second in the series.

Anna is a flawed protagonist, a police detective investigating a serious crime against a ticking clock of baying social media pundits, scared parents and a seriously ill child amongst those who have been kidnapped.

It will strike fear into the heart of many parents who blissfully leave their children at nursery/day care and never expect that they will not be there when hometime comes.

We’ve been there, and this is the icicle which lodged in my chest and would not melt-how vulnerable are your children when you place them int he hands of people you have no other option but to trust?

Beginning with any other ordinary day, parents in the South London suburb drop their young children off for the day, only to receive the phone call they never imagined would come-the entire class has been kidnapped and is being held to an extortionate ransom.

Enter Anna who has her own reasons for treading super carefully and not letting her professional and personal lives intersect. She has to take control, establish the facts and dig deeply to work out just who could have  breached the security of the nursery, and when she discovers that the owner was involved in another nursery where a child had died , something just doesn’t feel right.

As a reader, you are caught up in the tension of this all too believable crime, the fact that the teachers/ carers were tied up , beaten and risked their lives to protect their charges causes an additional storyline to develop as does the relationship between the parents , one set of whom has more to fear than most.

Their son has a congenital condition which requires regular, timed medication and his medical supplies were not taken by the kidnappers.

Under scrutiny, with flashbacks to her private life and being heavily leaned on from within and without, Anna has one shot and a very narrow window in which to get these children back to where they belong before its too late….

The tension is set high from the start and continues to ratchet up until the finale which leaves you breathless and wrought-the nature of parenthood and what you would do for your child, the lengths to which you will go to to keep them safe, are turned upside down and inside out as boundary after boundary is not just crossed, it is obliterated.

Highly recommended to those who want a read which will keep them guessing and leave them reading till dawn!

About the author…

J. P. Carter is the pseudonym of a bestselling author who has also written sixteen books under the names Jaime and James Raven.

Before becoming a full-time writer he spent a career in journalism as a newspaper reporter and television producer. He was, for a number of years, director of a major UK news division and co-owned a TV production company. He now splits his time between homes in Hampshire and Spain with his wife.