The Evidence Against You

by Gillian McAllister

[zooloo1983]

How can I write about this book without telling you anything about the storyline or giving the plot away? How can I tell you about all the doubts I had, as a reader, to who killed Alex without giving the plot away? How can I tell you all the reasons you should pick this book up without giving the plot away?????

See the issues I am having here!!!

Don’t get me wrong The Evidence against You did take me a few chapters to get into, I think possibly when I picked it up I was not ready for something quite heavy. Yet, when I did pick it up and I got into it, I found the chapter so snappy it was easy to fall into the trap to keep on reading. Some chapters opened with a partial transcript on an interview of the court case and then it would be the memory that Izzy’s dad, Gabe, would tell Izzy about the days leading up to her mother’s murder and the days of her body being discovered. Izzy, in turn, gave us her point of view and this is where the stories started to conflict.

The rest of the book was the day to day of Izzy’s life and her interactions with everyone around her and her little dream of the Instagram family, whilst investigating what happened. Throw in other peoples perspective and you are completely turned around and around and AROUND with each piece of evidence, who can you trust?

If nothing else, Izzy is consistent by listening to her father, even if she can not decide if she believes him or not?! Sometimes, just sometimes, she needed to have a glass of water thrown in her face to wake her up to reality.

This is not a quick flash in the pan book, it is meaty and most definitely a slow burner but it needs to be. Each bit of information gleaned is done slowly, like peeling a layer of onion skin off one layer at a time. We learn something about the past and then we garner things from the present all building a bigger picture.

Like with most stories, as soon as you pick at one thread more and more begins to unravel. To say that here is an understatement! We are taken down so many red herrings, not just with the evidence but with the narrative, you can not trust anyone, and I BLOODY loved that! I question everyone’s motive, not going to lie, I even questioned Izzy. I had no reason too but thought I may as well hedge a bet on it.

The Evidence against you was rather poignant with the theme of family running through and how truly precious it can be. The ending to say least brought a lump to my throat, as I really didn’t want it to end that way but completely understood why it had to. To be honest it made complete sense to me.

This is my first outing with McAllister, but I do have a couple of other books by her so I will be definitely be coming back for more. I do hope I have said enough without saying anything to intrigue you to read the book and give it a go that it really does deserve.