No One Saw A Thing by Andrea Mara

400 pages; Published by Penguin - 15/02/24; Dimensions 12.7 x 2.4 x 19.5cm

As a mood reader I read this at the right time for myself. I was excited to see that this is the £3 Tesco deal with a newspaper, at the time, making it £4 which is great value and at the time of purchase makes it the cheapest available. Also, you get to choose your copy, so you know you have an A1 perfect copy, if like me you prefer your brand-new books to be in pristine condition.

I mention I got this at the right time for myself as I was looking for something new and exciting that I could read on my train journey from the South West to London, where I was off to the launch of TM Logan’s latest novel, The Dream Home (I am sure a subject of another post in the future).

It’s been a while since I have read a psychological thriller and now was the time. I was naturally pulled in by the cover which has a tube train, and this was pertinent to my journey and I do love to read about somewhere I am potentially spending the day in and around. However, the cover has disturbed me a little as the book is set a lot on the underground, with the image showing the train outside when the story is mainly focused in Bond Street station and Oxford Circus station, which are both firmly under the ground. As a frequent user of the tube since my childhood, I am aware there are areas where the tube is in the open but being picky and taking note of the book cover, I have to say this niggled me.

On arrival at London Waterloo, I was, as usual, heading straight to the Tower of London for lunch via the Bakerloo Line, changing at Embankment and onto the Central/District Line to Tower Hill. I was delighted that, unbeknownst to me, the characters visited the Tower of London, so I felt very much involved.

I feel I enjoyed this book more because I was in the areas at the time of reading, something I recommend if you can do this which is even better when you don’t know exact locations in the book and you just happen to be there or are travelling there.

I promise no spoilers, so I don’t really mention plot. I also found this relevant to myself in that one of the characters is a six-year-old girl (my youngest turns six in the spring) and also the mother in the book has three children – two girls and a boy – which, once upon a time, was myself travelling in London and on the underground with the exact combination of three very young children, I remember it like yesterday.

I couldn’t put this down and I was zipping through it as my train rattled along. I read half of this 400-page book on the way to the capital and the other on my way back to the West Country and really enjoyed the way it was written, the page layout and the chapter breaks.

I was okay with the chapters flipping back and forth from the past to the present, but I will say I was more eager for the present part of the story as the past was quite detailed. Perhaps others might find the story that has quite a few characters from the past and it becomes a little complicated how they are entwined with the present day.

I feel it is a book you would want/need to read quickly, like an underground train speeding under the city, because if you put it down for a few days, you may need to refresh yourself with who is connected to whom.

I was excited for this even more so when I saw who the author is as I really enjoyed ‘All Her Fault’ when it was first published in 2022, which I am sure was also in the supermarket newspaper deal.

Sensory feel of the book – it’s a standard size paperback, soft pages, not bright white or too crisp or too sharp. Font size is standard (ITC Giovanni) and, as mentioned before, I found it a nice and easy layout with the location, time and date clearly at the top of each chapter, which is handy to help keep up. All in all, a very fast paste read ideal if you are traveling in and around London.

I very much look forward to Andrea Mara’s next book ‘Someone In The Attic’ due out this summer.