Sarah Hilary - Come And Find Me

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Well written and gripping

I thought Come And Find Me was a good, gripping read.  It is a police procedural which has the immense merit that police do actually follow procedure, so it's a pretty plausible story and Sarah Hilary writes very well.  It is the fifth in her Marnie Rome series and can be read as a stand-alone, but it's probably best to read at least some of the previous books first.

Marnie, Noah and the team are hunting a dangerous escaped prisoner following a gruesome prison riot which he apparently instigated.  We get a third-person narrative from the point of view of various police officers (principally Marnie and Noah) and also the internal voice of another prisoner in hospital after the riot.  It's a good story whose surprises actually made sense (which is a very welcome change from those books whose "twists" sacrifice all plausibility of story and character in trying to produce a surprise ending).  Hilary develops her characters well and there is some pretty decent psychological insight here, as well as an understanding of the realities of prison life.  I became very gripped by the story and the writing. 

I do think that Sarah Hilary overdoes the psychologising and backstories of her police characters sometimes.  The digressions into the murder of Marnie's parents and Noah's tribulations with his brother - not to mention a lengthy episode involving the dementia of the mother of a minor police character - interrupted the narrative flow.  Hilary creates good, rounded characters without all this slightly overblown stuff which was a distraction rather than an enhancement for me.

This small personal reservation aside, I enjoyed Come And Find Me; I can recommend it as a well-written, thoughtful and gripping story. 

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)