The real-life exposé that is an inspiration for this story is fascinating and enraging, so I was very keen to seen how it might play out in fiction - sadly, this just didn't work for me. I didn't find the writing involving, partly because it feels jerky and doesn't flow well, and a personal pet peeve is a story which is overly 'shown' rather than being dramatised: there's very little speech, for example, we're told what people said. There are also lots of flashbacks and memories and shifting around between characters, all of which made the distance between me and the story yawn widely. Given that we know what's going on and the characters don't, it felt like I was just waiting for them to catch-up before the real story could begin - great topic, but the treatment didn't match my book tastes.

A really engrossing read. Tess has brought up her daughter single handed since her partner walked out on the day of her birth. Mia is now a teenager, and a death in the family reveals information about her father that has made her question who he was and why he left. Tess and he met during their time as environmental activists but was Dave who he said he was? All these years later Tess starts to question if have ever knew him, and after telling Mia that he had died when she was young, how painful will it be to uncover the truth..
The story of undercover police infiltrating environmental protest groups in the 80s has come to public attention in recent years and the devastating effect it has had on lives. This is inspired by those stories. Very timely, very relevant, and very well told

This was a brutally raw and complex read that was well written with a compelling storyline and well developed characters. I couldn't put it down I was gripped right from the start.