Part of Joseph O'Loughlin
First published 2014
Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz surfaces from the Thames soaked in blood, his own and at least two other people's. He has no idea who pulled him into the water or why. What he does have is a photograph of Mickey Carlyle, a child who went missing years ago, folded in his pocket. That should be impossible. The man convicted of killing Mickey is already in prison, and Ruiz is the detective who put him there. Now internal affairs is circling, convinced Ruiz is faking amnesia to cover something up. A dangerous criminal is making threats, insisting Ruiz took something from him that cannot be replaced. Ruiz turns to psychologist Joe O'Loughlin, asking him to dig through the wreckage of his memory and find the truth before someone finishes the job they started in the river. Fragments come back slowly, and each one raises a harder question than the last. Ruiz built his career on certainty. Now he cannot trust his own mind, his own past, or the verdict he once staked his reputation on.
Genres: mystery, crime, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, gritty, psychological, suspenseful
Tropes: mystery-investigation, past-secrets, trust-no-one, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Thames, London
433 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown Paperbacks
Content warnings: murder, violence