PINTEREST
BLOGLOVIN
GOODREADS
Your father is on death row. You have seven days to save him. But do you want to?
Alice knows her father is guilty of many things.
He’s guilty of abandoning her.
He’s guilty of being unfaithful to her mother.
But is he guilty of murder?
Now on Death Row, he has seven days to live.
Some people want him released.
Others will kill to keep him just where he is.
Alice has only one chance to save him. But should she?
MY THOUGHTS
My thanks to Alainna of Hodder & Stoughton for the tour invite and for providing a copy of the book to review. Seven Days is available in ebook, hardback and audio (25 April 2024) with the paperback to follow (5 December 2024).
Lawyer Alice has been estranged from her father for 14 years. Now, following the revelation that he is not only on Florida’s Death Row but is due to executed in just 7 days, Alice feels a myriad of emotions. Guilt tripped by her younger sister Fiona into trying to find something which could halt the execution she finds herself caught up in a whole load of unexpected trouble which takes from her Whitley Bay home in the north east of England to Paris and to the US.
Each of the shorter (and nicely addictive) chapters leads with a timeline counting down to the execution date which increases the tension and the realisation that Alice only has a limited time in which to save her father. He of course insists that he is innocent but with his shady past there are some that would prefer him to remain guilty as charged.
Alice used to work in the States as an attorney and has some useful contacts. Her trump card is her friend Sofia, an ex FBI agent and a very resourceful private investigator for whom it seems that no task is impossible and one person at least that is clearly on Alice’s side. Unlike Agent Luc Boudreaux now serving with the Paris office of the Global Agency for Law Enforcement (GALE). It was Luc who originally investigated her father’s murder conviction and which led to him being on Death Row. Although he assures Alice he just wants the truth to be known, Alice doubts how much she can trust him and the two share an uneasy working relationship.
The plot is fast paced which pits Alice against the very worst of people with far reaching consequences. Alice was a likeable character and whilst she seemed fearless and at times rather stubborn and even reckless, there was a sadness from her past that she couldn’t escape from.
With surprises and unexpected revelations, Seven Days is a tense and suspenseful thriller which also touches upon complex family relationships and all the emotions, including anger and guilt, that come from a family that has been broken apart. With its underlying themes of justice and forgiveness, this was a book that I very much enjoyed.
Robert Rutherford had a random mix of jobs before taking the dive into crime writing; he’s been a bookseller, pizza deliverer, karate instructor, football coach, and HR Manager. He lives on the North East Coast with his wife, children & overly-needy dog, and is a founding member of the Northern Crime Syndicate crime-writers group.
Seven Days, a high-concept thriller, due out on 11th April 2024, is the first in a two book deal with Hodder.
He also writes as Robert Scragg, with “What Falls Between The Cracks”, the first in his Porter & Styles series, written under Robert Scragg, being chose as a New Writing North pick as one of the 2019 Read Regional books of the year. Rob’s work has also seen him win the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction in 2021, as well as being shortlisted for a CWA Dagger in 2021 and 2022.
Follow the author: X/Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Amazon UK
