Follow Me (A Freddie Venton and Nasreen Cudmore Mystery, #1)

by Angela Clarke

[Leah]

I was so excited when it was announced Angela Clarke had FINALLY signed a deal for a fiction book - and a crime thriller, no less. I loved her non-fiction book Confessions of a Fashionista and I was dead excited to read Follow Me, and I have to say I was super impressed with this book! It's one of the most fast paced crime thrillers I've ever read. You literally spend the whole novel on tenterhooks waiting for Apollyon to strike again. Who knew a Twitter serial killer could be so absorbing, and so bloody hard to identify? I genuinely got the fright of my life when Apollyon was revealed. Legit scared. I thought it was someone else, was SURE it was someone else (and I apologise profusely, but usually when a copper gives a girl a lift home HE'S THE CULPRIT) and got the fright of my life when the true killer was unmasked. GOB SMACKED.

This was an interesting novel, considering Freddie sort of stumbles into the whole crime scene thing and the novel in general. And she irritated me a little bit, in the typical fashion of heroine who knows nowt about crime scenes, ends up causing trouble or contaminating the scene, etc. For someone supposedly streetwise she was a bit dim sometimes. Nasreen on the other hand was an interesting prospect, and I never really felt that we got to see the real Nasreen. It always felt as if we were kept at arms length, holding her emotions in check, compared to Freddie who literally vommed at each crime scene and couldn't hold her stuff together.

This was such a frantic read, that it was hard to really absorb it all, but I really enjoyed the breakneck pace. The only thing that slowed it down was the secret from the past, as Nasreen and Freddie knew each other way back (and by way back I mean like 5 years ago, because they're only 23) and there was this secret hanging over them, which seemed wasted if only because it was rushed. Also: in 2006 these girls were NOT on Facebook, they were on MySpace or Bebo. Facebook was literally still all college back then, and only just open to the public so no way these girls knew about it yet. I'm also unsure if you can be a copper at 23, but again, I'll let it slide if only cos I can't be bothered to check (it just seems quite young, but I don't know how the training academies and stuff work over here in the UK so I may be way off base and 16 year old can be coppers).

I may be wrong, but the ending seemed to lead me to a sequel which would be AMAZING. I think there's still so much more of Freddie and Nasreen to be discovered. We need to see Freddie be more serious, a bit less reckless (because that gets you in to trouble) and more emotions from Nasreen. I want to know what makes her tick. Angela Clarke is a fine, fine writer. I LOVE thrillers that are at a breakneck pace, because there's nothing worse than a slow thriller. If I could have had any thing more from this novel it would have been more from Apollyon. It would have been interesting to see his thoughts, too, but only because there's clearly a tiny part of me that's a serial killer. JK. I'm ALL serial killer. So, yes, more please Angela, I love your style.