Anne Bonny #BookReview The Boy Who Fell by Jo Spain 4* #CrimeFiction #Irish #TomReynolds #series @QuercusBooks

The Boy Who Fell by Jo Spain
Review Copy ~ Amazon Vine Product

Synopsis ~


Kids can be so cruel.
They’ll call you names.
Hurt your feelings.
Push you to your death.


DCI Tom Reynolds is receiving the biggest promotion of his career when a colleague asks him to look at the Connolly case, believing it’s not as cut and dried as local investigators have made out. And as Tom begins to examine the world Connolly and his upper class friends inhabited, the privilege and protection afforded to them, he too realises something.

In this place, people cover up for each other.
Even when it comes to murder.

My Review ~

‘Her body showed all the hallmarks of resistance when the first responders came’

The title opens in Dublin, Ireland in 2015 at the scene of a violent murder/suicide. The crime scene is at the home of an affluent couple, who reside in a 1.2 mansion. The abandoned property will become something of local legend amongst the teens and eventually another crime will occur there…

We are quickly re-introduced to DCI Tom Reynolds and made aware of his new promotion. Tom is a highly likeable detective and has aided the series to go from strength to strength. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but he reminds me of the character Jack Frost (previously played by Sir David Jason in A Touch Of Frost) But an Irish younger version.

‘A man who doesn’t want power but is willing to take it for the greater good’

When Natasha McCarthy (head of sex crimes) brings a case to Tom, we are immediately aware, it is going to be one of much complexity. The case revolves around the potential rape/murder of 17yr old Luke Connolly. The teenager accused is 18yr old Daniel Konate.
This will be a case that will tackle various themes of consent, class divide, racial barriers and homophobia.

The case deals with many themes also amongst the bunch of teenagers that decided to party at the abandoned murder house. With Daniel being the only teen who is black, from a modest background and gay. Tom is going to have his work cut out. Is Daniel guilty? Why are the other teens so quick to pin the blame on Daniel?

‘They were a toxic little mix of money and meanness and boredom’ 

There is added heartbreak and emotional complexity, when we learn Luke had a brother. A twin brother in fact and he is currently in hospital with terminal leukaemia. Luke’s twin Ethan only has weeks left to live.
With this scenario, you really begin to feel for the Connolly parents. How do you grieve for one son, when the other has just weeks left in your life? How do you go from having two sons, to no living children?

‘Since Luke’s death, the world was on its axis’

Privileged posh kids, secrets and betrayal. 4*  

Jo Spain

Anne Bonny #BookReview The Darkest Place by @SpainJoanne 5* Tom Reynolds #4 #NewRelease #CrimeFiction @QuercusBooks Some secrets are meant to stay on the island. . .

The Darkest Place by Jo Spain
Review Copy




My Review:

I am a huge fan of Jo Spain and the Tom Reynolds series. The Darkest Place is #4 in the series and by far the BEST so far! It can be read as a standalone; and will still be thoroughly enjoyed for its atmospheric location and dark themes of mental health treatment in the 1970s.

“Forty Years was too long to wait for somebody to come back from the dead”

The novel surrounds a cold case from 40yrs ago. The disappearance of a Doctor at St Christina’s, psychiatric institution on the Island of Oilean Na Caille. His wife Miriam Howe has waited every year with hope, time has literally stood still for this woman. When she receives a phone call from that a body has been discovered and, she may finally lay Conrad to rest.

The novel details the daily life at St Christina’s asylum in 1972. How the patients were often treated as inmates with little or no compassion or humanity. I felt the author had excelled herself with her detailed research into historical mental health abuses and The Darkest Place is as close to accurate as you are going to get!

‘Ireland had the highest number of people lost to asylums per capita, in the entire world’

DCI Tom Reynolds receives the information on Christmas day of the body discovered at the grounds of the asylum. The case then quickly becomes his personal obsession and he pushes family duty aside in the name of justice.

With no DNA match identified and the discovery of a doctor’s diary the case becomes more complex and heavily layered in mental health treatments a stigma.
‘Do not be lured into feeling sympathy for our patients’ – Diary entry

‘How terrifying this place must seem to the vulnerable people who arrive here involuntary’ – Diary entry

A cause of death is identified, and it points to murder. Then a mass grave is discovered, and it blows the case wide open!!!!!
What really happened at St Christina’s all those years ago?

‘Sometimes the patients can get manic’

When you discover some of the mental health crimes/conditions/sins such as homosexuality. You begin to realise how many of societies most vulnerable were systemically and inhumanely incarcerated and experimented upon. . .
‘You would never believe, in the outside world, how little it takes to cross the threshold from there to here’

The novel fully illustrates the bleak and unhappy life that occurred at the asylum. Prison like conditions and staff that pleasure in the discomfort of patients.
Then you discover the basement patients, were the worst cases were held. . .

There is an amazing twist at the end. But this novel really has it all, superb storytelling, deeply layered plot and terrifying accuracy. 5*

Jo Spain

***The Darkest Place is released tomorrow in Ebook format***

My #BlogTour #Review of #TheConfession by @SpainJoanne @QuercusBooks #CrimeFiction #NewRelease 5* by @annebonnybook

 *I received an arc via Bookbridgr in return for an honest review*

The Confession by Jo Spain





My review:

This is one of them novels that has ALL the hype and it is totally and utterly deserved!
As you read the novel your opinions on the individual characters change with every chapter! At times you loathe them and at times you have so much empathy for their plights! I didn’t know if I was coming or going, with regards to the characters, but they are so engrossing, they read right up until the very last page………….

The novel opens with the scene of a barbaric and violent assault on Harry McNamara. As the reader, the scene instantly conjures up a million questions! Why did the killer strike at Harry? What is the motive? Who is the killer?

The pace of the novel then slows a little, as it details the life story of Harry and wife Julie. How they came to be married, what has occurred in Harry’s career and ultimately, why someone may hate him enough, to take a golf club to his head!!!!!

On the other side of the Irish town John Paul Carney (JP) hands him into the police station. He confesses to the crime of murder and the detectives are left baffled at to the reasoning. JP claims to have no vivid memory of the assault and admits that he simply ‘lost it’. But why what is JP’s link to Harry? Why target Harry? One thing is for certain, this was no random attack……..

The novel then details JP’s early life from childhood to adulthood. The poverty, abuse and mistreatment he has endured is laid bare, for all to see. Yet he still sticks to his original story. This continues to frustrate and rile DS Alice Moody, as she becomes convinced of a connection. Does an abusive childhood nurture a future killer?

“Seamie was a shit dad, but everyone knew the system was a cesspit for kids” – JP

JP’s internal dialogue continues to have the reader engaging with his personal story. I started to warm to his character and almost became defensive of this violent killer!!!

“What mad me this way?
I don’t know. Can you ever really know why you are the way you are?” JP

This novel has it all revenge, betrayal, loyalty, honour and unbreakable bonds. With a toxic marriage at its core, I was absolutely hooked on the blame triangle between Harry, Julie and JP.
If you are a fan of the psychological/thriller genre, then you will LOVE this novel! 5*

“Everything about that night had fate, written all over it”

Jo Spain
Authors page

Don’t miss the other blogs on the #BlogTour