Book info

• Title The Safe House
• Author Nicci French
• Year 1998
• Genre Thriller

You open your home and your heart to a victim. But your house is anything but safe... Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She's moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered. Yet by allowing Fiona in, Sam is exposing herself - and her daughter - to risks she couldn't possibly have imagined...

Thoughts

I enjoyed this story, although it felt like a pretty unusual and somewhat unrealistic situation to start with. Fragile traumatised girl goes to stay with random stranger in the countryside to keep safe? Does that happen? I don’t know but anyway, it set up what was an interesting and almost always threatening story.

I like the fact that the twist I guessed happened about three quarters of the way through, leaving plenty of time for more of the woven intricate details to be unravelled. I might have been feeling smug initially but it was quickly clear how wrong I’d been!

The ending left me a bit unsatisfied, I didn’t quite get it the way I think maybe I was supposed to, but nevertheless, it was a reasonably happy ending and after the tension all the way through that is all that can be asked for!

Rating: 3 / 5