The Trial is the seventh stand-alone novel by best-selling Irish author, Jo Spain. Ten years after she was a student there, Danielle McLochlainn is back, somewhat reluctantly, at Dublin’s prestige university, St Edmund’s, as a history professor. Many of the teaching staff will recall how distressed she was, back in 2014, when Theo Laurent, her boyfriend of eighteen months, disappeared without trace.

Being back where it happened evokes memories Dani would rather not dredge up. At the time, it was claimed that Theo, highly intelligent and passionate about medicine, had abandoned the course he loved at the School of Medical Research to go travelling, but several aspects around his sudden departure had Dani convinced that something had happened to him. Her concerns were summarily dismissed, and then urgent family issues became her priority.

Now, Dani is here for a different reason, and not necessarily the one she has given, but what she encounters has her wondering if it bears any relation to Theo’s assumed fate a decade earlier.

Much more cannot be said without spoilers, except that this is a brilliantly-plotted, tense, thought-provoking thriller that examines the potential for corruption in drug trials. Spain’s characters are wholly credible, her setting is expertly rendered, and she includes enough red herrings and twists to keep the pages turning and the reader guessing right up to the final reveal. Yet another novel proving that anything by Jo Spain is a must-read!
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus