Regular readers will recall that last year I review Carys Jones' first novel, Wrong Number, telling you that the book just stopped right in the middle of the story. Last Witness is the sequel and it's fair to say I think that it starts as abruptly as Wrong Number finished. There is no preamble, no building the story back up, we're just thrown right into it; so it did take me a couple of chapters to acclimatise myself with where we were in the tale.
I also felt that it did suffer a little from the same faults that Wrong Number gave me. The plot wasn't exactly slow, but it seemed to take Carys Jones a while to get into her flow - once it does get moving it's enjoyable, but it felt a bit like wading through mud for the first chunk of the book. I thought it also read a little 'Hollywood' at times, with McAllister the tough-guy baddie of the film. I don't know if I would go so far as to say it was far-fetched, but sometimes I felt like I had to suspend any disbelief and just go along with it so as not to spoil it. The whole darknet felt a tad reminiscent of a couple of episode of 24, but then I'm happy to say I'm not that familiar with the seedy underworld of the internet, so I'm happy to take it as fact!
And now I'm vaguely aware of the fact that I've done pretty much nothing apart from moan; please don't let my negativity put you off. As I said, once it gets underway Last Witness is really quite enjoyable. I am happy to suspend disbelief and any stretches of the imagination don't distract from the joy of reading in this case. Our heroine, Amanda, is a likeable and plucky character so I did care about what happened to her throughout and that is of course very important. Once Carys Jones gets into it, the action is thrilling and suspense-filled, so the book becomes a definite page-turner that is more than worthy of the relatively short space of time it takes to read it. A good follow-on to Wrong Number.
Last Witness is published on 1st May 2017
