Julie, JP, and Alice tell the story when JP beats Julie's husband Harry to death in front of her. Alice is the DS investigating the case. What a mess, both literally and figuratively. Did JP really not know Harry? Harry was a banker of the sort who is reviled by all, including his wife, who became an alcoholic. The tale of these two is told from the beginning- their meeting, their marriage and all the things that brought them to that night when JP burst in. Everyone here has secrets (except maybe Alice - although logically she does too) and those secrets are deadly. This starts very well and then slows a bit but the alternating narrators is a good plot device to keep you reading. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

As soon as I saw the cover, I had to read the blurb. As soon as I read the blurb, I had to have the book. And wow! I am so glad I got the book!

The Confession is a mind racing thriller that will not be easy to put down! Late in the night a stranger walks into the McNamara home where Harry, a corrupt banker and his wife Julie are taken completely by surprise. as the man beats Harry to death in a horrific way. Julie can do nothing but stand in fear and shock. Later that night, the man turns himself in. JP Carney claims the attack was not planned and he knew nothing of Harry or Julie.

As the detectives dig deep into this case, nothing is adding up. What was the motivation? Where is the link between the murdered, the murderer and the observer? Is he truly a stranger to them? What is the reason that JP Carney was so quick to confess and turn himself in? Who is the guilty party really?

The Confession took me on a crazy journey and I was not prepared for the twists that came! This was my first read by Jo Spain and I am definitely looking forward to more!

Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review The Confession.

Although there were times in the book that moved slowly and I felt it was a 3-star book, ultimately it kept me intrigued and kept me wanting to learn the true answers. That, and the unexpected ending, make it a 4-star book for me.

The characters, though not likable, were believable. The gradual unraveling of the true story was well done.

A co-dependent marriage. A crime that looks cut and dried, but is it? Was JP really insane the night he walked into the McNamara’s house and bludgeoned Harry to death? Spain keeps the reader turning pages as the story unfolds in the voices of JP, Julie McNamara and the investigating officer, DS Moody. What really happened that night? What caused JP to walk into that particular house? Was it coincidence or was there much more to the story? A clever game of cat and mouse, but who ultimately will win?

My first impression was that the dialogue was not quite right - as a Dubliner it jarred with me a little, especially the police chat. I felt to book lacked pace in places, but ultimately it unfolded nicely with enough intrigue.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R2BB98CDHPF8TJ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B06XRL3N98

This is my new favorite type of thriller/mystery. Instead of a whodunit, it's a whydunit. If you've seen The Sinner Part 1 and/or Part 2 on TV (with Bill Pullman) then you understand the setup that this novel uses. You know immediately who committed a murder but you have to wait as clues unfold as to why. Motive becomes the most important part of the book and it works quite well.
This shift in storytelling is so refreshing and unique. It's difficult to stop reading once you start because you're sucked in and desperate to find out why the murder occurred.
I highly recommend if you have the time to squeeze in the whole book in one sitting - you just won't be able to wait to finish it. I'm looking forward to reading more by Jo Spain.

Julie and her husband Harry are watching TV when a man breaks into their house and beats Harry nearly to death. The man turns himself in, confessing that he'd just killed a man. Wow, the prologue to this one really grabbed my interest. I enjoyed the book overall, but I didn't much like the characters. There were several sort of twists, the main one right at the end, which I didn't expect. I'd give it 4 stars.

Well, I most certainly need to thank my Goodreads pal Krystin @ (Here's The Fucking Twist) for her very entertaining review of this novel. She managed to lower my expectations and I ended up enjoying this a lot more than she did. So, thanks, Krystin! :)

(I would have posted a link to her review but the Goodreads "Formatting tips" are nearly impossible for me to figure out. Me not so smart. Ha!)

This is a "Why Did He Do It?" book and I have to say that the more I read the more I needed to know the answer to this question.

The opening chapter starts with a bang! The infamous banker Harry MacNamara is bludgeoned to death by a golf club wielding lunatic within his own living room and it is witnessed by his loyal wife, Julie, who was only able to watch frozen in fear.

J.P. Carney willingly turns himself in and admits to the heinous crime. The problem is he refuses to tell the authorities as to why he did it. He claims that he has no idea who Harry McNamara is. He picked the house completely at random and that an internal rage just over took him in that moment. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Clearly there is a lot more behind this than just blind rage or is there?

I will admit that the world of banking and finance holds no interest for me. So when these things were discussed my eyes did gloss over a bit BUT (thanks to Krystin) I was expecting them and I really did just skim through those parts to get to the more juicy bits.

"Gallagher nodded in a way that said he was completely in the dark but couldn't cope with another explanation."

Gallagher, dude, I feel your pain hence the skimming of those sections.

Part 4 of this book had me racing through the pages. I'd say this book was a win for me! 4 stars!

Thank you to Sarah @ Crooked Lane Books & NetGalley for kindly sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to netgalley for the ARC of this great book. The book starts off with a bang! A man is killed in his house, by an unknown assailant. They did not know each other, and the assailant claims he doesn't know why he did it. He just felt like it.... That sets the tone for a thrilling read, trying to discover the reasons behind the assault. I kept on thinking I knew what would happen next, just to be surprised at the next page, and the next, and the next.....
Highly recommended!!

Well written and atmospheric psychological thriller. The plotline, initially, is deceptively simple. Ellie has written a hugely successful first novel and is struggling with writers block as she attempts to complete the follow up. Whilst away in France she rents out her house for a fortnight, but when she comes home she notices a number of subtle alterations to her surroundings. From that point on the book changes in tone and focuses more on Ellie's suspicions and growing paranoia. Also features a very good conclusion

Very accomplished and evocative. a thoroughly good read - recommended.

I very much enjoyed this book. Crime novels are some of my favorite reads and this one is one of the better ones I have read. I think that is because the novel starts with the crime and the Confession so it is not a story of who but why.

One of the other things I loved was the multiple narrators. You have JP (the murderer), Julie (the victim's wife), and Alice (the cop). The way the narrators are written you get bits and pieces over the course of the novel. Each has their own agenda and only reveal what they want to reveal. Alice is the closets to your objective narrator in this story so you get some information from her that you can believe to be true.

I would recommend this novel to anyone that likes Tana French novels and police crime novels.

The Confession by Jo Spain is a different concept to the regular psychological thrillers that we normally read. Spain did an amazing job with this flipped style story where we know who did it and must read on to find out why. I loved it. I was hooked immediately and while I did not care much for Harry and Julie, I was brought into their lives and fascinated with them. We start out with Harry’s murder and a confession. Then with Julie as the protagonist, we take a trip down memory lane and learn about their life from the start to the finish. The ending will shock you yet it ties everything together. Spain is now one of my favorite authors and I cannot read more by her.


5+++ stars ⭐️ out of 5

This is the first book that I have read by the author and I am so very happy that I was able to enjoy their talent. The twists and turns that I came to throughout the pages of this book was fantastic. The development of this book plays to readers curiosity and suspense. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

WARNING: You would not want to put this book down once you start reading it!

This book just made me do that on the first day that I started reading it. The story began with Julie, the female protagonist, chronicling the murder of her husband Harry on that fateful night in 2012. From there the author took her readers down the memory lane - from the first encounter of Julie and Harry, to their fairy tale wedding in Italy, then on to her lavish life style with her husband -- who has dark, deep secrets on the side.

This definitely is one joy-ride read. Kept me glued on the screen - I don't have the physical book, as I was only able to download a digital copy from Net Galley.. And I truly appreciate the author's style of telling the story in the different perspectives of the main players -- I was especially hooked onto Julie's and JP's intriguing confessions. Had the fatal accident in 2007 not happen, there would not have been any confession. Ooopps I don't want to give away the story...

You would not certainly regret getting a copy on the 11th September 2018 when this book is out. A 5-star psychological thriller!!

The Confession started out a little slow, but then I couldn’t put it down, all though when reading the “Alice”chapters I felt like it got a little boring and long. But all and all very fast paced and a lot of twists and turns, Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.

In all honesty, I've sat on this one for a bit.  This is my first novel by Spain, and I read through it rather quickly, but I wasn't exactly sure how I felt or what I thought when I reached the last page.

The Confession is a backwards(?) thriller told in the perspectives of three characters: the wife - Julie, the attacker - JP, and the detective - DS Moody.  Finding out who the murderer is in the opening chapter is new to me so I was intrigued as to how the story would play out.  There was a good amount of back story for each character, which I felt wasn't entirely needed as it caused the novel to drag at times; but it also provided insight into the character's actions throughout.  There was a sense of realness in the way the events were laid out, but nothing was overly shocking.  I also found the wife's dialogue to be a bit annoying and repetitive.

The build leading up to the reveal of why is slow, and the ending, to me, was extremely underwhelming.  With the book starting with the bang I was hoping it would end the same way.  There was a decent twist towards the end, which was a nice surprise given I thought I had everything figured out at the beginning of the last 1/4 of the novel; however it just wasn't what I was hoping for.

The Confession by Jo Spain is billed as a dark thriller, but it’s really more of a depressing autobiography of the main characters whose POVs we get to experience; how they got to that moment in 2012 when a banker is getting his head bashed in by a stranger with a golf club. These POVs take us all the way back to childhood in some cases, and quite honestly it was tedious.

There was something in the telling of events that lent itself more to realism, and while that is an accomplishment in contemporary novels, this was supposed to be a thriller. The goal being to thrill the reader with the shock of events we don’t experience in real life (hopefully.) This was anything but thrilling.

The novel started out with a bang of blood and brutality that grabs the reader by the throat when Harry the banker is viciously attacked while his wife, Julie, watches in stunned horror. But that was the first and the last of that kind of entertainment.

That horrifying pace was never maintained. Instead, it settled into a mundane telling of personal events. The path to alcoholism, the troubles of a marriage and co-dependence, the struggle of infertility. The effects of a poor upbringing and the tragedy of mental illness. Nothing about the writing was bad per se, actually it was quite the opposite. The prose provided the reader with a vivid experience, an understanding of the characters at a base level.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t care about the characters.

When I read a book that isn’t what I expected it to be – either through my own assumptions or the marketing of it – I try to sit back and take a look at it from a different perspective, to have an open mind. Would I like this if it was just a contemporary piece about two lives that intersect in random ways, leading to heartache and profoundly altered lives?

I’m on the fence. Like, I said the writing isn’t bad. But the characters…talk about unlikable.

This is the kind of story we’ve seen before – where different POVs slowly reveal a twisted truth with many layers. When this is done right, it can blow your mind. Some of my favourite books use this narrative device. But in The Confession – whether it be the choices the author made to build these characters or the amount of background that was required to explain who they were – by the time each “twist” was rolled out I just didn’t care anymore.

There was just something about the plot execution that was predictable, uninspired and torpid. Most reviewers seem to be blown away by this book, a lot of 5-star ratings popping up, but I honestly can’t figure out why even when looking for a new perspective to understand.

BAM!! An "in your face" start to this terrific story! A young man walks into the home of a disgraced banker, and attacks the man while the wife sits there watching. An hour later he turns himself in and "confesses" to the murder.
What really happened and most importantly, WHY??

I'm not gonna lie, Harry and Julie are TOXIC and to be honest, not very likeable. But, you can't help but be pulled into their life and this story. I did think it got a little bogged down a couple of times, but it was still a good one to read. Kudos to MS. Spain. You haven't seen the last of me :)


**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

Wow this book started out with a married couple named Julie and Harry quietly watching television. Suddenly they turn and see an intruder in there living room holding a golf club. The intruder walks over to Harry grabs him throws him to the floor and starts bludgeoning him until he’s a bloody pulp while julie sits in her chair shocked. The intruder then tosses the golf club and walks to the police station and turns himself in. The intruder says he just snapped and did not know Harry or Julie. The police find it hard to believe that a man who just committed a violent crime didn’t know his victim. What was his connection to the married couple. The story bounces from now while the intruder is sitting in his jail cell and his story to Harry and Julie past and present and what led the horrible night of Harry’s murder. I got so involved with the characters and turning each page I finished this book in a day! I give this five stars this author did and amazing job of holding the mystery and diving into each characters life!

This is a different kind of psychological thriller in that there is a murderous attack at the very beginning of the book and almost instantly, there is a perpetrator who confesses. It is a compelling read set in Ireland after a banking collapse that has crippled the regular people and enriched the rich even more. Harry McNamara is a banker who got away with his nefarious swindles and is happily living a very posh life with his wife Julie. His comfort ends when JP Carney comes in the unlocked door and attacks him, sending Harry into a coma while Julie just watches, frozen and unable to even summon help. The book is narrated by the three main characters: Julie, JP and DS Alice Moody. I enjoyed finding out the backstory of each character in a slow, methodical way that gave me glimpses into why they are the people they are today. None of the characters is really likable, although, of course, I was totally engaged with the story of all of them. We know what happened. We know who did it, but we don’t find out why until the very end of the book. The chapters are short, making for a fast-paced read that will keep most readers of thrillers totally engrossed all the way to the satisfying conclusion. The book is different in its approach and it is this difference that makes it so remarkably mesmerizing.