Blurb:

After a tense birthday celebration in Haddley, journalist Ben Harper watches his boss, Madeline, get into the car that has come to collect her. He walks home, never imagining that by the next morning, Madeline will be missing.

To find Madeline, Ben will have to return to the now infamous murder case that made her journalism career over a decade ago. A case which, Ben quickly discovers, was never as simple as it seemed.

But time is of the essence, and soon it’s not just Madeline’s life on the line . . .

Review:

I really enjoyed the previous two novels in this series, so I was looking forward to getting started on this one, which is just as enjoyable. It was good to catch up with Ben Harper, whose determination to find answers and slightly maverick approach makes him a relatable and easily likeable character. His relationship with Detective Constable Dani Cash also gives his story an interesting edge and I loved the exploration of the relationship between a detective and a journalist and the ways in which they complement and work against each other. Dani has her own background story, which is explained in more detail in previous instalments so I’d recommend reading the other books in the series before this one to get a full appreciation of the plot.

There is a lot going on in Ten Seconds, both in the past and the present. Each section begins with an account from an unnamed child, and I was intrigued to see how these chapters connected to the body of the story. The murder of Aaron Welsby, which is introduced at the beginning of the novel, is the catalyst for several other incidents to unravel and it was entertaining to read as it did so. Through the different elements of the plot, we meet a number of different characters. Even the relatively minor ones have compelling back stories and this allows us as readers to draw conclusions about them and perhaps consider them as suspects. There is constantly intrigue about who was responsible for what.

Robert Gold is an incredibly accomplished writer, and I believe he has definitely honed his craft over the course of the series. His writing is fast paced and full of breathtaking moments that made me want to understand the intracacies in the story. There are a lot of twists and red herrings and I was often surprised by the direction in which the author was taking us.

I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Ben and Dani!

Ten Seconds is available from Amazon.