The perfect victim by Corrie Jackson.
Charlie and Emily Swift seem to have the picture perfect life so many strive for - young, good looking, successful and in love. But something hasn't been right for awhile. Then the body of a young woman is found and the last person to contact her was Charlie. Now he's on the run and his past is laid bare to the media.
A very good read with good characters. I hope there is more to come. 4*.

This book hooked me from the very beginning, and I really loved it! I didn't love all of the characters, but the story was great.

Great story by Corrie Jackson. Really fabulous story, that kept me turning the pages!! A thrilling plot, and characters.

A thrilling tale of how far someone would go to help a friend. This story also highlights the horrors of addition and how it can destroy people.

Sophie Kent is a reporter for a London newspaper. While investigating the murder of a female the case circles back to a friend and colleague of hers at the paper. She's also looking into her brothers supposed suicide. She has a lot going on!
The Perfect Victim also sheds light on the devastation addiction can have on loved ones. It can affect everyone differently as it has Sophie and her friend Charlie. Sophie's relationship with her work colleagues was special. Almost familial. You could tell they were concerned with each others well being beyond the work environment. It made the characters extremely likable. I'll be looking out for the next Sophie Kent book!

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and Corrie Jackson for this copy to review.

This story makes you question what you really know. Things aren't always as they seem. I didn't realize this was the second book in a series, so that messed me up some. I am not a series reading fan, unfortunately, but that was one of the few hiccups I had with this story. There are some actions by characters that I would question as not being realistic, but past that it is a good mystery thriller that will make you guess and guess again until the end.

Great little whodunit that kept me interested from beginning to end. Highly recommend this title to any thriller lover. .

Charlie and Emily Swift seem to have the picture perfect life so many strive for - young, good looking, successful and in love. But something hasn't been right for awhile. Then the body of a young woman is found and the last person to contact her was Charlie. Now he's on the run and his past is laid bare to the media, and there's nothing flattering bee revealed. Sophie Kent has been close to Charlie for years and she knows this isn't the Charlie she knows - he was the friend who has helped her through tough times and was a shoulder to cry on. The man the police are searching for seems very different. But as more is revealed both Sophie and Emily realise their faith in this man might not only be misplaced but could even put their lives in danger.

It took me a little while to get into this. In fact there was a point I considered not finishing which is not like me at all - one I start a book generally I insist on finishing. But it just wasn't grabbing me. I don't know why, although I find Sophie a bit irritating. But something suddenly clicked and after only managing 25% in a few days I finished it in an evening. I suddenly had a fantastic read that I had to finish. And one that took me by surprise. I had to go back as for a minute I thought the ending was one of this curve balls you couldn't possibly guess....but the clues were there. Well played Corrie Jackson, well played.....Well played and well written.

Wow!!, It is one of the thrilling books I have read in recent times.

The book seriously takes you on a thrilling journey and I really like it. It is the story of a journalist Sophie Kent, who tries uncover the mystery of a murder. Her own colleague and friend, Charlie Swift is a suspect, and how far she goes for friendship?

The story is well-written and gripping. The book has a lot of surprising twists. You also realize that everything that appears on the surface is not the truth.

I really enjoyed reading this book.

Charlie and Emily are the perfect couple until Charlie is the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Emily asks Sophie Kent, Charlie's friend and a London Herald journalist. Sophie Kent was first introduced to the reader in the novel, Breaking Dead. This was a perfect crime novel full of surprising twists and drama. 4.5 stars!!
Thank you to Netgalley for this advanced reader copy of The Perfect Victim.

Very fast paced and very intriguing. I enjoyed how it kept me hooked and it was an original story. Nowadays so many books read the same. Highly recommend

The Perfect Victim did manage to hook me into the story, but sometimes seemed a bit choppy and jumpy. There was just SO many different characters brought in randomly and not introduced properly so I found I was going back and thinking - wait who is that? I did like the different facets of the story - not really knowing who you married, secrets, lies and betrayals, family dynamics and the whole cult aspect.

I enjoyed the book overall, I thought the storyline was interesting and the different relationship dynamics between the characters made for gripping reading alongside the plot. I look forward to future books about these characters.

The story is goes like this Emily and Charlie are a perfect couple till Charlie is accused of murder. At a loss and in desperation, Emily turns to Charlie's best friend, journalist Sophie Kent for help to prove his innocence.
This is Corrie Jackson's second book in the Sophie Kent series and the plot was convoluted and racy. The story in the blurb was just the tip of the iceberg, there were twists and turns aplenty.
The author left no stone unturned in bringing all issues like cult, religion, abuse, disease, and violence.
It took me a while to force myself to persevere with the story and not give up. The initial part had too much going on. And the main character Sophie Kent had her own huge emotional baggage. I liked the fact that Corrie Jackson has made her main character realistic but sometimes that comes across as too realistic. There are just too many problems in one little book.
In saying this, I have to admit that main character Sophie had gumption and determination to peel off the layers, see through the lies, and get to the real truth however difficult it is. The last part of the book was fabulous with twists on every page that it became a race to finish the story.
I read to escape real life and I like books that grip me from the very beginning. But when the book is confusing in the beginning I prefer leaving the book and going back to real life. But I am glad I held on to this book, just for the last few chapters.
A good thriller.

Sophie Kent is a reporter on the London Herald specialising in crime but when Charlie Swift, one of her colleagues and best friends, is accused of murdering a young partner in a law firm, a woman whom he had been having an affair with she is desperate to prove his innocence.

Charlie has already had huge tragedy in his life. His first wife died of cancer, but he has just married Emily and to all intents and purposes they are very much in love.’
Charlie had seemed to be rebuilding his life and there seems no reason why he would even consider having an affair let alone committing murder. However, Charlie has disappeared which seems to point even more to his guilt.

The brilliance of this book is the way all the main characters are torn apart bit by bit. Sophie discovers things about Charlie that she just cannot believe and yet all the evidence points to him. His wife, Emily, a successful wedding planner is exposed as an extremely fragile woman haunted by the fact that she can never be a replacement for Charlie’s first wife. Then something happens to Sophie that destroys all her belief in Charlie.

All the way through this book I thought I knew who the murderer was but such is the brilliance of the writing that I kept changing my mind and when all is eventually revealed it is an absolutely brilliant twist.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the crime genre. You just have to keep reading it to discover what is going to happen next. There are many characters some are journalists, some are police and some are family members of the main protagonists which only add to the complexities of this case but you never get lost in what is happening.

This is the second ‘Sophie Kent’ book and I will definitely be reading the first one even though this one can be read alone because I enjoyed the character of Sophie Kent and am interested to hear more about her earlier life.

I also cannot wait to read more of this author, she is amazing and long may she continue writing.

Dexter

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

When a young woman is found drowned in a river, and her colleague, Charlie Swift, is suspected of murder, journalist Sophie Kent must reassess everything she thought she knew about her friend. Convinced of his innocence, even after he disappears, Sophie soon finds that all was not well in Charlie’s seemingly perfect marriage to his second wife, Emily. As the plot unravels, Sophie does not know who she can trust and soon her own life is in danger…

I liked Sophie, the main protagonist, and felt that her being a journalist rather than a traditional police investigator brought something different to the table. From the outset, we get to see her ‘journalist’s nose’ at work as she arrives on the scene of a drowning and immediately seeks out information to confirm foul play. When it becomes apparent that there is a connection between the dead woman and her friend and colleague, Charlie Swift, we see a different side of Sophie as she wrestles with her conscience – can she really believe that one of the people she trusts most could be involved in this most heinous of crimes?

In parts, The Perfect Victim is very reminiscent of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl in that there is a lot of subterfuge and misdirection. Where Corrie Jackson differs, however, is that she had the ability to make me change my mind every few pages as to what was actually happening! Every time I felt I had the plot worked out, she hit me with a new revelation that made me rethink my theory once again! This is a book with an enormous amount of twists and turns but I never once felt as though I didn’t have a handle on the story, which is something that can happen in a plot such as this.

When I started to read The Perfect Victim, I was not aware that this was the second novel in a series where I had not read the first. This can sometimes be problematic if there is a plot running through the books but I am pleased to say that not reading the previous one did not hinder me in the slightest although I now regret not doing so! What a book! I even found myself going on a couple of lengthy bus journeys to give me some extra reading time!

The Perfect Victim is a very clever book and is one that I can easily see being transferred to the big screen. It is complex yet is so skilfully-written that it never once feels confusing. Definitely one of my favourite books of 2017 and one that I would highly recommend!

I really am disappointed with this book it was very hard going right from the first line.

I could not relate or actually like any of the characters and it is supposed to be enjoying reading but not this book.

There is so much information from the start and it's so chaotic and I did not enjoy it at all.

After the brilliance of Breaking Dead Sophie Kent is back and this time the truth is much closer to home than she wants to believe. Sophie is at a crime scene, a drowning, and discovers the victim was somehow connected to one of her best friends, the Herald's Business Editor Charlie Swift. When it's established that the victim is Sabrina Hobbs, a prominent lawyer, and she didn't drown, she was murdered, Sophie links Sabrina to Charlie, at first in a business way, but then she discovers that the two may have been intimately involved. Only she can't ask Charlie because he has disappeared and everyone's thoughts about him start to turn to a darker possibility. Is Charlie Swift a murderer? Sophie doesn't want to believe this, especially as Charlie is newly married to Emily after tragically losing his first wife, in a drowning accident... Do Charlie and Emily really have the Instagram perfect life that Emily insists they have? Or is the perfect victim right under everybody's noses?

Sophie once again is struggling in her personal life. Still obsessing over her brother's death she will grab at anything that may lead to information so when it turns out that there may be a link between Charlie, her brother and a religious group called Christ Clan, she leaps in with both feet, this time putting colleagues at risk too. DCI Durand makes a welcome return but unfortunately for Sophie, the man in charge of Charlie's case holds a personal grudge against her because of a connection to events in Breaking Dead. We get to see the story from Emily's point of view too, the state of her marriage in the weeks leading up to the murder and the disappearance, and her state of mind.

As with Breaking Dead, I was hooked from the very first page. There seems to be an awful lot going on and more than one plot strand but Corrie Jackson weaves them together skillfully over the course of the story and by the end, having stumbled through more twists and turns than the first book, she leads you to a most unexpected conclusion, which most people won't even have thought about. Given that Charlie works at a newspaper it was fascinating to see how everybody initially thought completely incapable of any wrongdoing, even infidelity, but as time passed and Charlie stayed missing, even the most loyal of friends and colleagues can start to have their doubts. The crumbling relationship between the missing Charlie and his colleagues as they struggle to accept that they may have a murderer in their midst and that it's up to them to unmask the facts to convict him if it is indeed true was extremely well written and great to see other people's opinion of him.

The Perfect Victim doesn't let up from start to finish, there's an energy about Corrie Jackson's writing that compels you to keep turning the pages and her characters are completely engaging, although not always likable, which makes them all the more human. It's a fantastic sequel to Breaking Dead and I have only one request. Sophie Kent book three, please!!!

Investigative crime reporter Sophie Kent should be taking it easy after the sudden unexpected death of her brother. But when she comes across a murder investigation in central London her reporters instincts immediately kick in, and she can't help herself.

Her boss at the London Herald is always hungry for the next big scoop, caring little about his employee's well being as is evident when he leans on Sophie to find out all she can about the dead woman being pulled from the Thames.

Sophie's colleague Charlie can usually be trusted to help her out when she's struggling and she knows that she will need all the help she can get with this particular story. Newspaper hacks and the Met Police aren't exactly the best of friends...

But Charlie Swift is nowhere to be found, his wife Emily unsure of his whereabouts and his junior at the paper news desk concerned about his recent behaviour. Sophie is concerned that he's not answering her calls. That's not normal Charlie behaviour. And then there are the seemingly implausible but undeniable links to the dead woman.

Was Charlie having an affair, or was there something even more sinister going on?

Sophie can't believe that her oldest and most trusted reliable friend would be involved with any criminal activity or have an affair. But as more and more evidence comes to light, Sophie questions everything she thought she knew about Charlie, and the answers won't be easy to swallow.

The Perfect Victim is easily one of the best crime novels I've read this year, from the refreshing and unusual perspective of an investigative reporter with a top detectives mind. Just brilliant.

Charlie and Emily are the perfect couple... or are they? When a woman is found murdered in the Thames it begins the revelations of so many secrets and lies. Sophie Kent is a reporter who works with Charlie and she vows to clear her friends name.

This is the second book in the series and I have not read the first but I don't think I lost anything. This book has so many twists and makes you realise that not everything is how it appears on the surface.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffer for a copy of this book to read