I photographed the moment of my husband's death....' So begins Hold Still , a nerve-twisting thriller from best-selling author Tim Adler. How much do we really know about those we love? Kate is visiting Albania with her husband, Paul, a much needed break from Paul's stressful website business. 'Hold still, ' says Kate, taking a picture as Paul steps onto the hotel room balcony. 'We'll always be together, ' Paul responds. Suddenly there is screaming below and a blaring car horn. Kate stares down from the balcony at the ...
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I photographed the moment of my husband's death....' So begins Hold Still , a nerve-twisting thriller from best-selling author Tim Adler. How much do we really know about those we love? Kate is visiting Albania with her husband, Paul, a much needed break from Paul's stressful website business. 'Hold still, ' says Kate, taking a picture as Paul steps onto the hotel room balcony. 'We'll always be together, ' Paul responds. Suddenly there is screaming below and a blaring car horn. Kate stares down from the balcony at the broken body of her husband lying lifeless in the street. Overcome with grief, Kate can't accept the truth of Paul's tragic death and replays the incident over and over again, searching her pictures for a vital clue to what really happened. When she meets the enigmatic Priest at a grief support group, they journey together into a dangerous world of violence and secrets as Kate realises what Paul really meant when he said he would never leave her.... Tim Adler is an author and commissioning editor on The Daily Telegraph who has also written for the Financial Times and The Times . His debut self-published thriller, Slow Bleed , went to number one in the Amazon medical thriller chart while influential review site Crime Book Club made it a Book of the Month. Its follow-up, Surrogate , has stayed in the top 40 psychological thrillers for over a year and was a Book of the Month on E-thriller.com. The Sunday Times called Adler's most recent nonfiction book, The House of Redgrave , compulsively listenable while The Mail on Sunday called it dazzling. Adler's previous novel, Hollywood and the Mob , an expos??? of how the Mafia has corrupted the movie industry, was Book of the Week in The Mail on Sunday and Critic's Choice in the Daily Mail . Tim is former London editor of Deadline Hollywood , a US entertainment news website.
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Hold Still by Tim Adler is a clichéd suspense novel. Kate Julia and her husband, Paul are in Tirana, Albania for the funeral of his uncle. After the funeral, Paul steps out onto their balcony. The next thing Kate hears is car horns and sees his body on the street below. Kate cannot believe that her husband killed himself. Kate had snapped a picture right before Paul disappeared and the picture does not add up with the information Kate receives from the police. Kate has her husband cremated and returns home to London. However, the more Kate looks into her husband's death, the less it makes sense. Then her flat is broken into and tossed. What is going on? Kate meets John Priest at a support group. Kate contacts him after the break in. John is understanding and sympathetic, but there is more to John than meets the eye. What happens when Kate keeps (recklessly) probing Paul's death? Will she still be alive to tell the tale?
I found Hold Still to be a very predictable novel. Once I started reading the story, I knew exactly how it would play out (I do not want to give away any spoilers). Kate is a naïve, trusting women who does everything she is not supposed to do (like trust a man she just met). I had trouble getting into this book (I actually never did). I like to dive into a story and be drawn into that world. Instead, Hold Still was a book that I read (to a reader there is a big difference). There were no unexpected surprises or twists. I give Hold Still 3 out of 5 stars. It was okay, but nothing great. There is some foul language and sex in the novel as well as extreme violence (fair warning).
I received a complimentary copy of Hold Still from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review of the novel.
