This is a book of the year.

Gordon, Sarah and son Rory are a happy family, living in an idyllic beachside community until one day when Rory disappears while playing out on the beach.

Gordon and Sarah’s lives are changed forever, as time passes the leads dry up and hope fades - but the story’s not over yet…

I went into this completely blind. I loved Liam McIlvanney’s previous books The Quaker and The Heretic so this was a must read ASAP for me and it exceeded my expectations.
It’s bleak, empathetic, emotionally-involving and absolutely compelling.

I love that this genre can constantly throw up surprises, the ‘every-parents’-worst-nightmare missing child’ premise has been done so many times and The Good Father brings something fresh, original and frankly amazing.

Read it as soon as you can!

Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK / Zaffre

Well then, there were certainly a considerable number of twists and turns in this book, making it an enjoyable read. I almost decided to give up on it early on, but glad I didn’t.

this was such a good book. and heartbreaking in many ways. but it was so so good because of that. because when a book manages to make you feel such intense feelings over a plot then its got to be one heck of a book in my eyes.
this paragraph even from the blurb had me. and is a great descriptor of how the book then manages to make you feel alongside the characters going through it...

Their lives don't fall apart immediately. While there's still hope (and no body) they dig deep and try to carry on. It's a process of abrasion - a wearing away of happiness and normality; a slow degradation, a gradual breakdown - until they'll never be the people they were before. This sort of tragedy impacts a whole town. Does the community still feel the same after? What are folk saying about you? Who are your friends? Who can you trust?

...because this is exactly how you would feel. and the couple do. and you question everyone, even yourself. you question what you did or didnt do or what your partner did.
this book then teases and unravels things in such an authentic time scale way. and builds that tense feelings throughout. so it mounts as you and the characters learn more. secrets are pulled out into the open and its not always strangers keeping them. its not always thee "bad guys" doing the bad things. or who you expect to be doing them.
is there such a thing as an innocent mistake in these circumstance. or was something much darker going on,
this is my first book by this author and ive already gone and searched out his other work. i thought it was just brilliant. i really did get on board with all sort of emotions.

This is the first thriller I have read for a number of weeks and it was a great one to get stuck into. The story is about a married couple, who are leading a normal and happy life with their son. They live in a nice and safe area and everything is going swimmingly until it's not. Their son was out walking the dog until it is only the dog that comes back but where did he vanish too? When they get the police involved everything starts to fall apart, have lies been told and is the answer much more closer to home than they think? will they ever get their son back alive? It was a slow burner but it was in a good way as you kind of get to peel the layers away to begin with, a bit of back story and intrigue and then it builds up in to a tense, gritty and suspenseful read. An author to watch out for. This was a brilliant read with a superb ending. I did not want it to end.