Come And Find Me (DI Marnie Rome #5) – Sarah Hilary

What’s it all about?:

Gripping, tense, twisty and full of emotional insight, COME AND FIND ME is Sarah Hilary’s Marnie Rome 5 book, for fans of Mick Herron or Clare Mackintosh. 

‘Hilary belts out a corker of a story, all wrapped up in her vivid, effortless prose. If you’re not reading this series of London-set police procedurals then you need to start right away’ Observer

On the surface, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull have nothing in common, other than their infatuation with Michael Vokey. Each is writing to a sadistic inmate, sharing her secrets, whispering her worst fears, craving his attention.

DI Marnie Rome understands obsession. She’s finding it hard to give up her own addiction to a dangerous man: her foster brother, Stephen Keele. She wasn’t able to save her parents from Stephen. She lives with that guilt every day.

As the hunt for Vokey gathers pace, Marnie fears one of the women may have found him – and is about to pay the ultimate price.

What did I think?:

I cannot stress enough how wonderful Sarah Hilary’s DI Marnie Rome series is and urge you all to start reading it if you’re not already obsessed like I clearly seem to be! Generally speaking, I usually begin crime series quite excited, determined to read all the books the author releases and then – something happens. It falls by the wayside, I read an “okay,” book in the series and sadly, my enthusiasm wanes and I either forget about the series or resolve that it’s no longer for me. However, the Marnie Rome series is one of the very few set of books where each story seems to get better and better and when I hear that one is due to be released, I’m gleefully anticipating it and genuinely leap-frogging it over other books in my TBR just so I can read it even sooner. Therefore, a HUGE thank you to Jenny Harlow and all at Headline Books for granting my wish and providing me with a copy of Come And Find Me in exchange for an honest review. I think you can already guess (and apologies for the awful gushing!) but all my expectations for the fifth book in the Marnie Rome series were exceeded, dramatically so. In fact, I’m beginning to think it impossible that Sarah Hilary could ever write a bad book and both her plot-lines and characters become more intricate and infinitely more wonderful than I ever could have expected.

Unlike other books in different series, I feel like I can talk about Come And Find Me quite easily without ruining too much for anyone who has never read any Sarah Hilary before. I’ll attempt to explain myself – you know in other series where there’s a bit of a re-cap of previous situations and if you’re reading the series out of order, it can possibly ruin things slightly if you haven’t realised? I really don’t feel like this is the case with this fifth novel. Sure, we get some slight references to events that have happened both in Marnie’s and other characters pasts but it’s all a little vague and not too detailed so if you did happen to come to this novel first, it could easily be read as a stand-alone and you wouldn’t face huge amounts of spoilers. Obviously, I would definitely advocate reading the first book in this series before any others as you get a much better idea of the personalities of our main protagonists and certainly, their back stories that has led to current events BUT I do like the way Sarah Hilary doesn’t spend oodles of time re-hashing past events.

In Come And Find Me, Marnie and her team are investigating a jail break and the disappearance of a dangerous prisoner, Michael Vokey. As he escaped from the prison, there was an almighty riot  and horrific fire which ended up with some men dead and five others including Michael’s cell-mate, Ted Elms and Marnie’s foster brother, Stephen Keele critically ill in hospital. As Marnie and her side-kick Noah desperately try to find Michael, fearing he might hurt someone else, they find letters from two women, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull who had not only been writing to him on a regular basis, but seemed to have got slightly obsessed. The letters include photographs, have quite shocking content on occasion and make Marnie wonder if one/both of them could be aiding him or hiding him from the authorities. We hear from both Marnie and Noah as they struggle to crack the case and from Ted Elms as he lies in a coma in hospital and it is not long before the revelations of what happened the day of the riot are much more surprising and unexpected than previously believed.

I adore this series. As I alluded to before, Sarah Hilary can do no wrong and with each book she knocks it out of the park in terms of plot and character development. Of course, there are inevitable twists that you think as a reader, you might have figured out but she still manages to turn things round and bring in that unpredictable element that you never see coming. I probably mentioned in my previous reviews but Marnie and Noah are amongst my favourite characters in fiction, I really feel like I know them and admire how with each novel, the author seems to take them to the next level. This book wasn’t so much about Marnie’s struggles with her foster brother Stephen, although it was obviously mentioned as he was a patient in the hospital after the prison riot, but I quite enjoyed that we got to see a side of Marnie where she wasn’t constantly caught up in the misery of her parents deaths. Saying that, I am rubbing my hands in anticipation of what’s to come for both Marnie and Noah, especially after THAT cliffhanger. Finally, I just want to mention the writing which I have always enjoyed in the previous novels but in Come And Find Me, it was if I noticed it for the very first time. Some of the lines of this narrative were so gorgeously poetic it was a pleasure to read and brought a whole new dimension to a story I was already enjoying but ended up admiring and respecting purely for the way in which Sarah Hilary was using her words.

If you haven’t read any of the Marnie Rome series before, you’re in for such a treat. I almost wish I could go back and experience them all again, knowing nothing, right from the beginning.

Someone Else’s Skin (DI Marnie Rome #1)

No Other Darkness (DI Marnie Rome #2)

Tastes Like Fear (DI Marnie Rome #3)

Quieter Than Killing (DI Marnie Rome #4)

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):