A strange man dies in a cafe leaving Kate a document that plunges her into a government conspiracy.

That’s it, really. For some reason this opened on the third page of the book for me, so readers may need to scroll back. It certainly makes more sense when read from the start. Unfortunately this book still really didn’t grip me.

To say why I didn’t enjoy the book would require an in-depth breakdown with spoilers, which I am not going to give here. The problem is that this is not a book where I just didn’t get it and the right audience would, there are actual structural flaws that a good editor could fix. The title doesn’t fit the story, as there is no Prime Suspect – in fact, there are no suspects.

It is written in third person omniscient, which is rare nowadays. As a result, you don’t get any of the characters inner thoughts, but the text informs the reader of things outside the characters’ knowledge e.g. “She could not have known…” I do like third omniscient, but only when it is done well and consistently. Here it is consistent, but the writing is a little flat with short, non-descriptive, sentences. In the first paragraph, for example, three sentences in a row start with the word ‘He’, badly affecting flow.

To me this seems a little unpolished. Conversations are skipped over, for example with “She said what needed to be said.” making it hard for a reader to follow who knows what. This is a failing in a suspense thriller. There are a few ridiculous co-incidences, and the final twist just doesn’t work. The bad guy has no reason to out himself at all, and would have got what he wanted if he hadn’t. Who Kate trusts and doesn’t trust changes on a whim, but there aren’t very many good reasons given as to why she suddenly trusts or doesn’t trust someone. And if you are trying to stay hidden, googling names and using a GPS locator from your known phone is not smart.

While it has the basis of a good idea, I think this book badly needed a polish.