My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Random House UK - Transworld Publishers, for the ARC.

Excellent reading! I thoroughly enjoyed Sam Lloyd's previous book Memory Wood, another psychological thriller, and The Rising Tide is as brilliantly constructed as that.

Set on the coast of Cornwall around Skentel where Lucy and Daniel Locke have been together for 9 years, building up their businesses - Daniel was in partnership with his best friend from childhood, Nick Povey, forming Locke-Povey Marine; Lucy has built up a local venue serving food and drinks alongside displaying artists' work and championing live music at the Drift Net on the quay. They live in a sprawling cliff-top house overlooking the beach and harbour. Daniel's business is failing because Nick decided to sell his shares to another major company. As Lucy desperately tries to make sense of the company's balance sheets her friend Bee delivers the news that their boat, the Lazy Susan, was spotted drifting off-shore. Where was Daniel? why did he take the boat out?
A massive storm is brewing in the Atlantic and a huge search and rescue effort is launched by the Services,, as well as the local population. The boat has been found empty, but Lucy's real nightmare begins as she discovered he must have taken their 2 children with him. It's a race against time - hope and fear mingle. Nothing makes sense.
As the narrative unfolds with Lucy's flashbacks and memories of her life and that of her family, and intermittent writing from the mind of the perpetrator the nightmare continues and builds pace. Daniel loves her and she him, he loves the children. He wouldn't do anything to harm them - would he?
DI Abraham Rose is the assigned detective - he believes he has incurable cancer and being religious is beginning to accept his mortality - but he is determined to find out the truth for Lucy's sake - but, he believes there is evil out there..

This is extremely atmospheric and, indeed, harrowing. The reader has to be well into the book before certain realisations dawn - the red-herrings, the twists and mis-direction; great plotting.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read an ARC of this book. Having read The Memory Wood by this author I was very much looking forward to this book, and it didn’t disappoint. A very different story but no less enthralling, it certainly kept me guessing and I wasn’t prepared for the outcome. A definite must read.