Say You’re Sorry follows Joe – an experienced psychologist who has travelled to Oxford for a presentation, as he is thrown into the deep end with an investigation that will shock and hit close to home for the psychologist. As the clock ticks down, will he solve the mystery in time to save Piper?

I understand that this is a book that is part of a series – not unfamiliar territory for crime fiction these days. However having picked this up at random, I’m happy with the amount of depth of character that was established in this novel, and Joe, his wife and his daughter are all well rounded characters that are easily understood, and whilst nuances in their relationships may have been missing due to my lack of familiarity with them, they are intriguing and likeable.

Joe is a bit of an enigma – he’s established his own practice in his new digs, away from his wife and children, however this isn’t where the action takes place. I gather that this is just a bit of development for Joe, where he’s been removed from his surrounds and placed in new ones as a part of his trajectory.

He’s taking his eldest daughter, Charlie, with him to Oxford as a bit of a bonding trip and also an opportunity to chastise her about the company she keeps, and the clothes that she doesn’t keep on. Being a teenager, Joe seems baffled as to how to approach these topics, and keeps struggling with this relationship throughout the novel.

On the way to Oxford, the train rolls past a crime scene – a woman being cut from the ice. During his stay, the local police seek Joe out for assistance with a double homicide, where their number 1 suspect is on the spectrum, speaks to his dead twin, and has a history of confessing to crimes he didn’t commit. The police want an airtight confession that will stand up in court.

All is not what it seems, and as Joe interviews Augie and visits the crime scene, he’s left with more questions than when he started off. And where does the girl in the ice fit in?

Three years before his trip to Oxford, two teenagers were reported missing. As is usually the case these days, the missing teens made local and national news with their disappearance – with a sensationalized view of the teens being given to the media. But as cracks started to show with the parents and the witnesses, it wasn’t long before the case was chalked up to “runaway delinquent teens” and they were forgotten in the day to day of their town.

But when one of the girls is identified as the girl in the ice, everything changes.

Say you’re sorry is an intelligent crime novel, with a sensitivity portrayed in the main protragonist – he’s the guy you see on the street, and with fears, dislikes and human qualities that make him so much more relatable than the stiff coroners and law enforcement types you sometimes read about in crime novels.