See How They Run – Tom Bale

Published by Bookoutre

ebook: 6 May 2016

About the book:

How far would you go to save your family?

In the dead of night, new parents Alice and Harry French are plunged into their worst nightmare when they wake to find masked men in their bedroom. Men ruthless enough to threaten their baby daughter, Evie.

This is no burglary gone wrong.
The intruders know who they’re looking for – a man called Edward Renshaw.
And they are prepared to kill to get to him.

When the men leave empty handed, little do Alice and Harry realise that their nightmare is just beginning. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Who is Renshaw? And what is he hiding?

One thing is clear – they already know too much.

As Alice and Harry are separated in the run for their lives, there is no time to breathe in their fight to be reunited. And with their attackers closing in, there is only one choice:

STAY ALIVE. OR DON’T.

Terrifying, unputdownable and full of twists and turns, this stunning thriller will have you on the edge of your seat right to the very last page

* * *

The beginning of this book is truly too terrifying to contemplate. You wake up, in the dark with your wife and young baby alongside you, to find not one, but two masked intruders in your bedroom, That alone is the stuff of nightmares. However worse is yet to come. You are threatened. You can’t call the police because you’re being watched. What on earth would you do?

Some parts of this story did make for very uncomfortable reading, especially at the beginning. I did feel that one part was a tad gratuitous and not really necessary however it certainly didn’t put me off from wanting to read on.

Harry and Alice are an ordinary couple living uneventful lives enjoying their time with 8 week old Evie (who incidentally is one of my favourite book babies; she was just adorable and gurgled and burbed her way through the story and actually gave some light relief to the tension). Our family can have no idea of the nightmare that they are to be thrust into, partly because of their own actions it has to be said, but then if they didn’t take that path, there wouldn’t have been a book!

It is rare that I read a book where there is no respite from the relentless suspense and tension and this was a truly exhausting read…but in a good way. There were times when I thought the responses of Harry and Alice were very unwise but I was rooting for them all the way through and desperately hoping that things would end well for them. They both had to face some truly vile characters in this book and I wouldn’t have known who to trust any more than they did.

I really liked the character of Harry; he reminded me of a Linwood Barclay protagonist – not a superhero but an ordinary guy thrown into an extraordinary situation and trying to deal with it the best way he knew. Alice, I found harder to get to know and even after all that she went through I didn’t really gel with her. Having said that, all the characterisations were excellent – whether good guys or bad, they really stood out.

This is not the first book by this author, he has published another thriller under a different name and I see that he has previous books out under the Tom Bale name. His talent as a thriller writer shines through here, there was nothing to criticise in his writing style and if you’re looking for a fantastically tense and nail-biting thriller, then look no further.

The new book by Tom Bale is due out in September 2016 – ‘All Fall Down’ – I am really looking forward to this; my heart rate should have calmed down by then!

My thanks to Bookoutre for the e-copy to review.

About the author:

Tom Bale has had a variety of jobs including retail assistant, claims negotiator and project manager, but none was as exhausting as the several years he spent as a househusband with two pre-school children. Tom has been writing since the age of seven, and completed his first novel at fifteen. After twenty years and hundreds of rejection slips, his first novel SINS OF THE FATHER was published under his real name, David Harrison. With his next book, SKIN AND BONES, he acquired an agent, a pseudonym and a book deal that enabled him to write full time. He lives in Brighton with his family. Visit his website at www.tombale.net, follow him on Facebook, or on Twitter: @t0mbale (zero instead of “o”).