Eye Spy – C M Ewan | Thriller Book Review | #EyeSpy @RandomTTours

Eye Spy is the chillingly intense original thriller from C. M. Ewan, author of The House Hunt, The Interview and Strangers in the Car.

Set on a fast-moving train over three hours, this high-octane thriller combines emotional family survival with edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Waiting for the Eurostar in Paris, Mark’s four-year-old daughter alerts him to a ‘Bad Man’ during a game of ‘Eye Spy’.

Things only get worse when Mark notices that the man is on their train with a suspicious-looking suitcase, and he’s sitting ominously close.

With secrets unravelling from the past, can Mark piece together the jigsaw of his life in order to save his family? Or will their journey come to a fatal end?

MY THOUGHTS

Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Format: ebook, audiobook and paperback (26 March 2026)
448 pages

Who would have thought that a simple game of Eye Spy would lead to a terrifying journey on a Eurostar train.

Following a short break in Paris, the drama begins at check-in for the return journey to London and doesn’t let up. When the ‘Bad Man’ that four year old Molly spots is seated in the same carriage as Mark and his two daughters this turns into a mile a minute ride of unbelievable tension and suspense.  Mark’s wife Claire is not with them, she has to work but insisted they go without her. However Claire has secrets of her own and as the story progressed, there is a foreboding that this train journey will not end well for anyone.

Mark has his own sad backstory which still haunts him, as does Claire – this is how they met. Mark isn’t a superhero – he’s just an normal dad, trying to get along with his moody and stroppy teenage stepdaughter Freya but from the situation he finds himself in on that train he has to dig deep and find every piece of courage and intuition to keep them safe. Seemingly outwitted at every turn by those who would suffer no guilt for the consequences of their actions, he must find a way to get his family off that train alive.

With chapters counting down the timeline to arrival in London, the suspense never lets up. There are aspects to this thriller to make it different from the norm and although I guessed some of where it was heading, there was an intake of breath at certain revelations and twists.

This was a cracking read and I thoroughly enjoyed it even if I didn’t have any fingernails left at the end! I’ve been on the Eurostar many times but thankfully, unlike Mark and his family, the only drama I’ve encountered is not putting my watch forward an hour on arrival in Paris 😳

A definite recommended read.

My thanks to Anne of Random Things Tours for the invite and to the publisher for the paperback copy to review via Bookbreak.

If you are tempted by this review, Eye Spy is currently available to download from Amazon UK for just 99p – a steal for such a great read.

C. M. Ewan is a pseudonym for Chris Ewan, the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of many mystery and thriller novels. Chris’s first standalone thriller, Safe House, was a bestseller in the UK and was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.   He is also the author of the thrillers One Wrong Turn, The House Hunt, The Interview, Dead Line, Dark Tides, Long Time Lost and A Window Breaks, as well as the Good Thief’s Guide series of mystery novels. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam won the Long Barn Books First Novel Award and has been published in thirteen countries.

Chris lives with his wife and their two children in Somerset, where he writes full time.

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