Wow. What a novel. Loved the Faustus parallels throughout and the way you never knew who you could trust.

Adam is paranoid, thinks everyone is watching him, that he is under constant surveillance but maybe he is…? At university as a medical undergraduate he played a the titular role in Dr Faustus and began an unhealthy relationship with the compelling Clio who introduced him to the toxic Louis Farr… Lucifer? Suspicious deaths, blackmail and deceit ensued. 24 years later, Adam is a successful paediatrician with a happy marriage and children of his own, Clio reappears to cash in…

Im a sucker for a great title...

No Place To Hide, would end up in my hands before I even read the back of the book.

There is no rhyme or reason on how I select books but I can tell you that whatever it is that I am doing has not failed me yet.

J.S. Monroe, knocked this one out of the park!

This book holds every key component to be a best seller.

Dark Web
Deceit
Murder

Check, Check and Check!

Jam packed with twists, you'll never want to put this book down once you start!

There is not one doubt in my mind that book lovers all around will fall in love with Monroe's writing style. I have definitely been made a fan.

Don't take my word for it, find out what all the buzz is about and head on over to your favorite bookstore to purchase this book!

Teaser:

You might be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're not watching you.

Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers' mobile phones, city traffic cameras – he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a medical student.

Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he's long left behind. Until one of them, Clio – Adam's great unrequited love – turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making...

No Place to Hide is a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together the dark web, murder, and blackmail...

Adam is paranoid. Or are they watching? The cameras are everywhere. But Adam is a pediatrician with a wife and 2 kids. Why would anyone want to watch him? Sure, his life isn’t as great as it seems from the outside right now. His marriage is tense and falling apart. It isn’t helped when an old crush from college randomly finds his lost son in the park. Did she find him? Or take him?

The story then rewinds back to his days in school as we slowly learn just why he has such an obsession with cameras. Every time a new memory ends, we get a little better understanding. That doesn’t mean that all is what it seems. The whole thing takes a really dark turn in the end. Just ramps up as it goes until there is no where else to go but face the past head on.

An excellent suspense read I found totally gripping which I could not put down. The storyline was well thought through and in my view was brilliant. Wonderful to follow the two stories interlacing one another. I could not second guess at all throughout the whole book. Superb!

An entertaining read, some parts were a little far fetched but the technology side did have a ring of truth, even if I really didn’t want to believe it! Just who is watching you? And all this technology we have around us, just what access does it give to other people to monitor what we are doing.? The book was written in two timelines which worked well and built the excitement and the tension.

One the surface the main character is a normal guy, Adam who works as a paediatric doctor and is happily married. Adam’s slightly obsession with cameras and CCTV is strange and the significance of his growing paranoia becomes justified. This book is narrated from the present to 20 years in the past and the tale knits and weaves into a clever suspenseful thriller with Clio emerging from his student days. A clever and satisfying read.

If you asked me at the start of the book, what would I rate it, it wouldn’t be 4 stars, however, the middle and the ending really pulled the everything in the book together for me.
The beginning was such a slow burn, with way too many hints and too little explanations. The book is split into 2 different time frames, 1998 and 2022. Adam, the main character, is a doctor living in London, juggling family life and his career. In 1998, he was studying medicine at Cambridge, and the story flicks between his student life and his life now.
Mysterious things happened at Cambridge and now Adam must suffer, 24 years later.

What I liked about this book was the adrenaline pumping end, and the characters, even though some were dislikable. The author wrote the characters well, and gave us a few surprises along the way. The end of the book will have you on the edge of your seat, second guessing every motive and every character.

What I didn’t like was the beginning, it took a little too long to become a thriller for me and I found it a bit tiresome. I also didn’t like the Dr Faustus references, mainly because I had no idea about it, but it was relevant to the ending.

I absolutely loved this book! I read it so fast because I could not put it down and my heart was pounding! I highly recommend this one

Adam has it all - blissful family life and is a successful doctor.
However his past secrets as a medical student come back to haunt him.
He becomes paranoid, convinced he is being watched by every CCTV camera in the city.
A bit of a slow burner but keeps your interest because you want to know what happened.
Love the premise of how technology can be used against you - i.e. hacking, the black web - it’s truly scary.
A top psychological thriller for 2023
Thanks JS Monroe, Aries Fiction & Netgalley for the advanced preview copy

From the outside, successful paediatrician Adam appears to have an idyllic life. He has a beautiful wife, and two young children, and they seem to live a contented existence in south London next to the wide open space of Greenwich Park. But Adam hides a secret about a tragedy that happened during his time as a medical student: a secret that makes him afraid he is being watched all the time, and the surveillance society that surrounds him feeds his paranoia.

Only two other people know what happened all those years ago, and when one of them walks back into his life 24 years later, he is sure it cannot be a coincidence. The arrival of Clio, the woman he was once obsessed with, heralds a series of increasingly worrying events that threaten to derail Adam's life... and to put him and his family in danger.

This is one of those psychological thrillers that plays on your worst nightmares, and it gripped me from unsettling start to breathtaking ending. Adam is a man who has made mistakes and these come back to bite him in sinister style. I cannot give too much away here, as it would spoil the beautifully crafted surprises that Monroe floors you with, but as the story flips back and forth between the present and 1998 when the fateful events of Adam's past are revealed, the terrifying pieces of the mystery come together in a way that chills you to the core. 

Intriguingly, Monroe takes the theme of Christopher Marlowe's tragic play Doctor Faustus, in which Clio and Adam play opposite each other in the most prophetic of ways as a temptress Mephistopheles and a foolish Faustus during a university production, and runs headlong into a timely scenario that scares the wits out of you. Adam has a very good reason to fear being spied upon, and his Faustian devil employs every technological trick, from spying software to the horrifying activities of the underbelly of the Dark Web, to give this morality tale a very modern twist.

At times, Adam's head is an uncomfortable place to be, but somehow his fight to redeem himself and protect his family gets under your skin, and by the time you reach the final stages of the story you are very much on his side. Clio is a totured enigma for almost the whole story, which adds delicious suspense, and allows Monroe to create a very satisfying twist and twist again ending on the wild clifftops in Cornwall that makes your heart race. My favourite character was Adam's friend Ji, who proves to be a valuable asset to have in his corner, and who adds some much needed comic touches to lighten the darkness.

I consumed this book in a single feverish sitting, unable to look away for a second. I have not read anything by J.S. Monroe before, but will certainly be looking out for more of his thrillers in the future!

No Place to Hide by J.S. Monroe is a psychological thriller about a man with a past that is coming back to bite him.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Aria & Aries - Head of Zeus and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:    (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Adam Pound is a pediatrician, is happily married to Tania, and has two small children.  But Adam is a little paranoid, convinced he is being watched.  By every camera in the city.  The CCTV cameras in the hospital, the city traffic cameras, cell phone users....

When Clio, a woman he fell for in university turns up under strange circumstances, he's even more anxious.

Perhaps Adam is right to be concerned.  After all, 24 years ago, something awful happened at a party he was at.  And Clio is one of two other people that know what happened.  Then there's the fact that he may have made a deal with the devil to keep his secret safe.


My Opinions:
This was an intricately woven tale, told in two time-lines, which worked well.  It did, however, move very slowly, as the suspense built, and then it was quite good.

It was rather creepy, and I'm not sure I liked ANY of the characters.  The baby was fine, but Freddie should have been old enough to know about stranger-danger.  Tania was a little wishy-washy, and Clio....well, I think she just needed psychiatric help.  Louis, of course, was evil, and Adam came across as rather full of himself.  I wish Ji had played a bigger role in the book. He was probably the most interesting.

The book was about technology, and how software today can be used against you.  But I think, more importantly, it is about secrets, and trust.  I liked the references to the Elizabethan play about Dr. Faustus, as well as MacDougall's weight of a soul experiment.

Overall, the writing was good, and the actual plot was very good.  As well, although I did see a couple of the twists coming, I was definitely surprised by one!


For a more complete review of this book and others, (including the reason I chose to read/review this book, as well as author information and contact details), please visit my blog: http://katlovesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

Prepare to be hooked!
This is the first book by J.S. Monroe I read and after a slow start, it kept me on the edge of my seat up to the end. The tension was building up, as were my feelings of dread…very clever plot along the lines of Dr. Faustus combined with many absolutely unexpected twists make this a fascinating read.

A really good story wherr you arr on the edge of your seat with tension trying to work out what is happening. Is Adam dasdelusional as he sounds?

A young medical student at Cambridge desperately trying to integrate with the cleverer and wealthy. . Desperately he believes his access to the inner circle is through Cleo, the most beautiful and sought after although every instinct screams dangerous to know. Ignoring warnings, attendance at a wild drug fuelled party where a tragedy occurs leaving him guilty, confused and open to blackmail. Two decades later now a successful doctor and family man the past is resurrected dragging him Into the worst imaginable nightmare. Nothing as it seems and no one to be trusted. His past is back to haunt him. Written in two time frames, often gripping and terrifying is the reality that cameras are everywhere and nothing can be hidden:. On occasion, for the reader , lurks the frustration that an incredibly intelligent character can often act with such stupidity. The premise of true evil, the black web and technological advances suggests everyone and everything is under total surveillance. This leads to a compelling conclusion if somewhat implausible and infeasible. Many thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for ARC.

I’ve really enjoyed J.S. Monroe’s previous books and so I turned to this one with some excitement and anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed. Monroe has a strong flair for capturing a distinctive crime that you won’t easily forget and then building a novel around it that has the reader questioning and second guessing the plot all the way down the line.

No Place to Hide is full of secrets. It is a dual timeline story, with the past informing the present as Monroe cleverly spools out the whole story of what went before to stun us with the rationale for what is happening in the present.

His use of current technology adds a real present danger threat to what is already a clever, twisty and suspenseful psychological thriller.

Adam Pound is a paediatrician. Married to Tania, he has two young children and his life feels solid and secure; his happiness complete. But there’s a shadow in his past and though he has done a lot to bury that shadow it has never quite disappeared.

He has a visceral fear of being filmed and is markedly uncomfortable when a CCTV camera appears at the bottom of his street.

Things escalate in Adam’s life when a lost love appears suddenly. Clio was at University with Adam and they acted together in a student production of Faustus. Adam thought he and Clio could have meant something to each other, but Clio was in tow with another guy named Louis. Louis was a keen filmmaker and despite being warned that he was not a good guy, Adam consented to being filmed for a series Louis was making around the theme of ‘A Day in the Life of…’

What happened and how it came about is threaded through the book and none of it makes a complete story until we get right to the end. But the theme of a Faustian pact and Mephistophilian behaviour leave us wondering whether Adam’s Faustus will end up more like Marlowe’s Faust than Goethe’s.

As Clio suddenly re-enters his life over 20 years later, so Adam’s life takes a decidedly darker tone. He starts to worry for the safety and security of his family and soon his life is entering a downward spiral from which it seems there is no escape. His work and his family seem to be under threat and he is growing increasingly paranoid, constantly feeling that he is under surveillance.

Adam doesn’t know who he can trust. Tania, sensing that he is holding back, has taken the children way and his sense of paranoia is growing exponentially. Monroe brings a real sense of darkness and claustrophobia to events and leaves the reader wondering if Adam is a reliable narrator, or if that strong sense of building dread is going to result in something truly catastrophic. There are some beautifully dramatic settings in this novel, including a beautifully played out scene at the open air Minack Theatre in Porthcurno, Cornwall.

As matters come to a head, Adam is in a battle for both his life and his soul without knowing who, if anyone, he can trust.

Verdict: No Place to Hide is an atmospheric and intelligent novel with a tangible sense of dread as this twisted and shocking book brings everything to a head. Nicely plotted and very twisty, Monroe weaves in the dangers of new technology together with the open sewer that is the dark web, to bring us a truly shocking, nightmarish novel that shows how easy it is to destroy lives at the press of a button. No Place to Hide starts out slowly and gains pace, building to a twisted crescendo that leaves the reader shocked and breathless.

A really great story full of tension and anticipation trying to work out what is going on, is Adam delusional or is this really happening....

No Place to Hide is my first read of J.S. Monroe and I am so impressed with this psychological thriller I need to read his backlist. This story demonstrates high anxiety and paranoia and had me terrified myself, I don't think that the blurb gives much away at all. It is very fast-paced with short chapters that will keep you hooked and unable to put the book down.
Until I started reading, I didn't realise the setting of the story would be sometimes in Cornwall. I purposefully don't read a lot of books based in Cornwall, but the Cornish references in this book were very funny at times. I think sometimes it went a little overboard, and there was a spelling mistake of a place name that hurt my Cornish soul. I couldn't find any reference online that the author has any connection to Cornwall, but I could be wrong.
The plot focuses heavily on technology, but I think the author does a great job of explaining devices and concepts to the general reader. I am also not personally familiar with Marlowe's play of Dr Faustus, but again this was well described by the author with context and explanation.
The characters in the book were well-developed, fully rounded, and dare I say, many were even likeable, for instance I enjoyed Ji's cool persona. I connected with both FMCs, feeling deep sympathy for them each.
There were some shocking twists that were completely unexpected and the ending is truly a triumph. I highly recommend this unique, fast-paced thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

Thank you to NetGalley, Aria & Aries and J.S. Monroe for allowing me to read this advanced reader copy.

Review posted to Goodreads and will be shared to Amazon on publication date.

This was an interesting story which takes a dark turn as it progresses. It did make be wonder if anyone is watching me.

Although slow at first I found this book quite the page turner. The paranoia of our hero, that he is being watched is strangely relatable! Would recommend to anyone looking for a slightly different thriller to read.