Starred review from January 9, 2017
Jarlath “Jar” Costello, a London-based Internet click-bait content writer and the hero of Monroe’s thrilling debut, has started seeing a dead person. Specifically, he’s been seeing glimpses of Rosa Sandhoe, his girlfriend who leapt to her death into the sea off Norfolk in 2012 when she was a student at Cambridge University. Five years later, Jar is certain of two things: that Rosa and he are soul mates and that she’s still very much alive. A body was never recovered. When he gets ahold of an encrypted file containing Rosa’s journal, his faith is confirmed and his search for her kicks into high gear. A gear so high that the pages all but turn themselves as the story unfolds in taut chapters alternating between Rosa’s journal entries and Jar’s frantic quest. Monroe adds more voices in the book’s second half, keeping the guess-who’s-crazy/guilty ball in the air until the all-consuming reveal. Pacing is crisp and the plot is credible, but it’s the cast of expertly crafted, psychologically ambiguous characters that rivets. Monroe is the pseudonym of a well-known British author and journalist. Agent: Will Francis, Janklow & Nesbit.
December 15, 2016
Monroe's debut thriller is a paranoiac's dream with plenty of twists. It's been five years since Rosa Sandhoe, the love of Dubliner Jarlath "Jar" Costello's life, supposedly jumped off a bridge to her death. Her body was never found, and Jar, who frequently "sees" Rosa, has convinced himself that she's still alive. He finds a sympathetic ear in his best friend, Carl, but Carl is sure that Jar, in his enduring grief, is just seeing things and recommends that he see a psychologist specializing in "post-bereavement hallucination." When Rosa's aunt Amy finds what she believes is Rosa's diary, written while she stayed with Amy and her troubled husband, Martin, she gives Jar the hard drive, but it's encrypted, so Carl finds someone who can decode it. Entries are sent to Jar as they are recovered, out of order, and that's how they're presented within the novel, interspersed with Jar's investigation. The diary entries are revelatory, and Jar becomes increasingly convinced that Rosa was recruited for a disturbing government project, perhaps because of her deceased father's work. Rosa's diary entries reveal a young woman conflicted about her place in the world: she's not quite sure of how she fits into student life at Cambridge, and her intense love for Jar has her at odds with her nearly unbearable grief after her father's death. When Jar's efforts attract the attention of the police, he's sure he's getting closer to a horrible truth about Rosa, and for him there's no turning back, but what if the truth is closer to home than he ever could have imagined? Jar's labyrinthine search is intimately entwined with Rosa's story of self-discovery, making for an exciting read that combines the thrill of a spy novel and the intimacy of a coming-of-age tale. Fast-paced, satisfying, and, ultimately, life-affirming.
COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
January 1, 2017
Five years ago, Jar Costello's girlfriend jumped from a pier and was lost at sea. Jar has never believed that Rosa died that night and swears he's spotted her in London. His therapist dismisses the sightings as bereavement hallucinations, and Rosa's family agrees. Then Rosa's Aunt Amy fearfully slips Jar her hard drive, claiming that detectives seeking access to Rosa's encrypted diary have trumped up child-pornography charges against Rosa's Uncle Martin. When the files are unencrypted, Jar finds Rosa's heart-wrenching chronicle of their love story interwoven with details of her recruitment into a covert espionage program called Eutychus. Convinced that Rosa is alive and in danger, Jar partners with a reporter who investigated the program before Rosa's disappearance, and they track Eutychus, using Rosa's diary, clandestine message boards, and boots-on-the-ground detection. Readers will easily fall into step with sensitive, quick-witted Jar, and Monroe's journalism experience lends realistic detail to the back-channel investigation. Smart, well written, and tangled in unpredictable twistsa top-notch psychological thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
October 15, 2016
The author of five spy thrillers, beginning with the John Creasey Memorial Dagger short-listed The Riot Act, Jon Stock takes on a different name to write a different kind of book. Jarlath "Jar" Costello is told that he's suffering from postbereavement hallucinations when he declares that he keeps seeing girlfriend Rosa, who supposedly committed suicide. Then he gets hold of her diary, which drags him down into a smoke-and-mirrors underworld he never knew Rosa inhabited. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.