Book review: It’s Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh

It’s Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh is another unexpected read from the English author. Her debut I Let You Go was a very memorable book for me and in my review I comment on almost dropping my iPad into the bathtub (where I read) as the midway plot twist was sooooo shocking with limited foreshadowing. On starting this I assumed I was about to read a book about a cheating partner who gets his comeuppance, with the victim / partner becoming a key suspect… but this was far from that. Again Mackintosh flips things a third of the way through the book and we realise we’ve been duped. Suddenly the type of book we thought we were reading is far from what unfolds.

About this book

Nadeeka is certain Jamie is having an affair. She knows the tell-tale signs. She’s been here before.

When Jamie claims to be at work late, she knows he’s lying. He’s with another woman, and she’s determined to catch him in the act.

But when Nadeeka arrives home to confront him, Jamie can't explain himself. The house has become a crime scene…

My thoughts

Mackintosh doesn’t waste any time getting to the point here, as we meet Nadeeka as she’s racing home expecting to find her boyfriend of 10 months at their house with another woman, instead finding her house a crime-scene and Jamie stabbed to death. We’re privy to several flashbacks during which we learn how they meet and baggage Nadeeka is carrying from her marriage to a cheating ex-husband.

Initially we meet the likeable DI Burton and later the even-more-engaging DCI Lauren Caldwell and her husband-to-be Sergeant Fraser Hogan and I appreciated the investigation unfolds as Lauren and Fraser are in the midst of wedding planning.

Mackintosh takes readers down several paths offering up a number of scenarios and suspects. But again this heads in a surprising direction and Mackintosh keeps the surprises coming until the very end. It’s hard to talk too much about the murder and the ‘why’ without offering up too many spoilers, but let’s just say Nadeeka’s forced to consider that (either) she didn’t know Jamie as well as she thinks; or that others are wrong about him.

A clever artifice adopted here is the fact that we move between narrators at pivotal moments. The book opens with events from Nadeeka’s point of view, before switching to Lauren and then going back in time where Jamie plays host to readers. We return to the present where Mackintosh continues to offer up more surprises leading to a stunning (and kinda shocking) climax.

It’s Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh was published by Harper Collins.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.