It Should Have Been Me is the first stand-alone novel by British author, Susan Wilkins. When she was eleven years old, Detective Constable Jo Boden’s sister Sarah, in her first year at Uni, was murdered. Despite maintaining that he had no memory of any crime, was zonked out on dope, her boyfriend Nathan Wade was convicted and sentenced. Almost seventeen years after Sarah’s death, Nathan has served his non-parole period and is being released on licence.

Already mentally frail after the loss of her daughter, Alison Boden is distraught at the prospect of his imminent release. Jo knows the last thing she needs is an encounter with film-maker Briony Rowe, who claims she was Sarah’s friend, purports to know who really killed her, and is running a campaign to reverse the miscarriage of justice to which Wade was subjected.

In addition to handling all that, Jo is trying to impress in her new undercover position trapping an arms smuggler, when she learns she is the target of Albanian criminals due to a rather reckless act during her last surveillance operation.

At her mother’s insistence, Jo finds herself reluctantly meeting with Briony, as well as the producers and eventually, Wade himself. Jo remains unconvinced, but the seeds of doubt are sown and, when she reads Sarah’s journals, she finds a sister rather different from the perfect daughter her mother described.

The story is told from a number of perspectives, and includes letters from Sarah to Jo, Sarah’s journal entries and an anonymous, ambiguous narrative which is particularly chilling. As the story progresses, there’s a slain cat on a doorstep, an acid attack and an apparent suicide that which has the victim’s friends highly sceptical.

Wilkins throws in red herrings, twists and distractions, so the potential list of perpetrators for various acts grows longer and reader is kept guessing right up to the final chapters. This is a thoroughly gripping British crime thriller.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by the author.