Jean Angus pours the last of the lukewarm tea into her chipped cup, shivering as she looks outside into the dark night. Her eyes are drawn to a slow movement not far from her cosy farmhouse. She’s not expecting visitors. And as the back door opens with a bang, she doesn’t even have time to shout for help.

On a dark winter night, the bodies of Malcolm and Jean Angus lie cold and still in a pool of blood in their kitchen. Detective Jessie Blake is called in to find out what happened to the reclusive pair.

Searching the couple’s property, Jessie learns about a vicious dispute with a nearby land owner, Rachel Ferguson, and when Jessie looks into Rachel further, she doesn’t expect what comes up. Rachel isn’t the person everyone thinks she is and a previous murder conviction just made her Jessie’s prime suspect.

The small Perthshire town begins to gossip about the double murder and Jessie’s own past comes back to haunt her, when her abusive ex-husband begins to interfere in her new life. As the town starts a witch hunt against Rachel, Jessie is under pressure to find out what really happened in the farmhouse that night. Because if it isn’t Rachel, then who is the murderer living among them, waiting to kill again?

I received a copy of the book from the publisher through Netgalley.

Housekeeping first: this is not the first Jessie Blake story but it is the first I have read. Do you need to have read the earlier stoies?  I didn’t think so – Her Secret Past stands well on its own and at no stage did I feel I was missing out on important information or was meant to know what had occurred previously.

Her Secret Past opens in pretty shocking style – a young teenage girl and her 19yo boyfriend have beaten her grandparents to death in a pre planned attack. We watch as things start to go wrong and their careful planning comes apart. Needless to say the pair are found out and prison awaits.

Spin forward to present day and we are at another murder scene and so too is Jessie Blake. Another unusual event – the grandson of one of the victims sitting at the table to eat a meal is also sitting beside the corpse of his grandfather – seemingly unperturbed by the brutal slaying which took place not long before. The boy is clearly on the spectrum but as the story develops it becomes apparent he is very focused on murderers and killers and this is a fascination which could cause some problems during the course of Jessie’s investigations.

The murder throws up a good number of suspects which kept me guessing and reassessing where I thought the story may go. The narrative switched nicely between Jessie’s current investigations and events from 20 years ago which followed that attention-grabbing opening scene. As readers may have guessed – the two stories entwined but not how I had anticipated and someone in the cast is playing a clever game.

The story is well paced and several chapters end on cliffhanger moments which are not immediately resolved on the next page. It keeps you reading but once or twice the effect felt forced and not really necessary.

All in, a good story, interesting cast of characters who mixed up the action well. I’d certainly look for more books in the series.

Her Secret Past is published by Bookouture and is available in paperback and digital format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0813N28BD/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0