I Let You Go

In this dual narration, Steven Crossley delivers a third-person account of Detective Inspector Ray Stevens's campaign to find the hit-and-run killer of a little boy--despite his wife's growing resentment of his neglect of family, and despite obstruction by the brass who want to close the case and move on. Nicola Barber performs a first-person Jenna Gray, a young woman shattered by the crime. Crossley's delivery is precise but perhaps a little under-dramatized. Barber's is lovely and moving, with a very slight lisp in Jenna's diction that adds to your sense of her anguish and vulnerability. In her expertly plotted and rendered psychological puzzle, Mackintosh weaves together police procedural, family drama, and the anatomy of a murder. Deftly performed and pretty terrific. B.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

March 14, 2016
At the start of British author Mackintosh’s accomplished debut, five-year-old Jacob Jordan lets go of his mother’s hand for an instant on a rainy evening in Bristol, England, and darts into the road, only to be struck and killed by a hit-and-run. The investigation lands on the desk of Det. Insp. Ray Stevens and his eager new detective constable, Kate Evans. Mackintosh alternates between the slow, but fruitless, police work and the movements of artist Jenna Gray, who’s haunted by Jacob’s death and relocates to an isolated Welsh village, where she keeps to herself, warming slightly to the local vet after finding an abandoned puppy, and even then keeping the details of her previous life a secret. Back in Bristol, Ray and Kate work the case to the ground, despite a lack of leads; predictable sparks fly, even though Ray is happily married with two children. Mackintosh easily shifts points of view and keeps readers on their toes, slowly upping the suspense, so that when she does reveal her twists they—mostly—work.