The Greenway by Jane Adams
Available from AMAZON UK US AU CA
DISCOVER ONE OF THE MOST BREATHTAKING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS YOU WILL READ THIS YEAR
AUGUST 1975: Cassie Maltham’s life changes forever one scorching day. She and her twelve-year-old cousin Suzie take a shortcut through the Greenway, an ancient pathway steeped in Norfolk legend. Somewhere along this path Suzie simply vanishes . . .
TWENTY YEARS LATER: Cassie is still tormented by nightmares, parts of her memory completely erased. With her husband Fergus and friends Anna and Simon, she returns to Norfolk, determined to confront her fears and solve a mystery that won’t let her rest.
Then another young girl goes missing at the entrance to the Greenway, and Cassie is pushed once more into the darkest recesses of her mind.
John Tynan, the retired detective who’d been in charge of Suzie’s case, is still haunted by her disappearance. He offers his help to Detective Inspector Mike Croft who is leading the increasingly frantic search for the missing child.
Has evil returned? And what really happened all those years ago and who can be believed?
Perfect for fans of Nualla Ellwood, Kl Slater, Gillian Flynn, and Lucy Clarke.
ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLERS YOU WILL READ THIS YEAR, FULL OF ASTONISHING TWISTS.
My Review
This was my first book by Jane Adams so I was unsure what to expect but I needn’t have worried I was gripped from the very beginning.
Cassie returns to Norfolk to face her demons. Twenty years ago Cassie and Suzie were taking a shortcut home along The Greenway when Suzie disappeared. She was never found and Cassie has been tormented by her memories (or lack of them) and bullied by her mother, blamed by Suzie’s parents she struggles mentally. Suzie was never found.
Now married to Fergus with Annie and Simon the 4 return to the area to try to lay the skeletons to rest but then another child, the splitting image of Suzie goes missing while playing on the Greenway …
Is Cassie involved or just an innocent victim and is the supernatural playing a part in the disappearing children. A retired detective and DI Mike Croft are determined to solve this crime and find out what happened all those years ago.
This is a fast-paced psychological thriller that had me turning page after page as the mystery and intrigue increases along with the many twists and turns making this a very entangled story that kept me on the edge of my seat.
The characters are realistic, all with issues they are dealing with that brings a human touch to the complex characters that develop well into the story. The area is described with great skill in that I could envisage in my mind The Greenway and Tan’s Hill.
An excellent read, I can’t wait for the next in the series. 5 stars from me.
Jane Adams Author Bio
Why do I write?
Like most writers, it’s a kind of compulsion. The stories are there and I have to try and grab hold of them and pin them onto the page. Most of the time, I enjoy the process; sometimes, I’d rather be doing just about anything else, up to and including the ironing – and I hate ironing.
I started writing when my youngest child went to school. I was incredibly lucky and my first novel, The Greenway, was picked up by Macmillan in 1994 and published in 1995.
I currently write two series; Naomi Blake and Rina Martin. Rina was a character I’d had in mind for years before committing her to paper. An elderly, ex thespian who had played the part of a popular TV detective, she had retired to the seaside and bought a boarding house for other ex performers. Rina’s feisty, no nonsense character is, I suppose, based on the rather powerful and opinionated ladies I grew up surrounded by – mother, teachers in the all girls school I attended, aunts and pseudo aunts, all of whom had opinions about everything and made sure these were unstintingly shared.
Naomi Blake, on the other hand, was the brainchild of my late agent, Bob Tanner at International Scripts. ‘You should write a blind detective,’ he said ‘ and she needs a big, black guidedog, called Napoleon’.
I thought it was a daft idea, and told him so. I just couldn’t see how to do it. But, like a lot of seemingly daft ideas, this one wormed its was into my brain and I realised he was right. It could work and so, the Naomi Blake series came into being.
I have always written in other genres too, short stories in the SF, Fantasy and Gothic Horror genre, and am working on longer projects when time allows. I also teach Creative Writing and have had the great priviligde of being a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at three different universities.
