FRAGILE MINDS

Claudie is still recovering from a personal tragedy when a bomb explodes outside London’s Academy of Ballet, where she works. Claudie’s friend Tessa is one of the victims. Claudie has a terrible feeling that she was somehow involved in the bombing. If only she could remember the events of that day….

As the police investigate whether a terrorist group was behind the bombing, the story unfolds from the point of view of three characters: Claudie (in first person); DS Lorraine Kenton (third person); and DI Joe Silver (third person). Each chapter is headed with the name of the POV character. The shift from first to third gets distracting, but even more irritating is the ‘head hopping’, as the story frequently strays from the POV of the title character into someone else’s POV. This should have been fixed in the editing process, as should the over-frequent use of commas instead of full stops in dialogue separated by a character action.

In spite of that, I did enjoy this book. It’s a gripping read, and it kept me reading. Claudie is a sympathetic character, and I did empathise with her as she looks into Tessa’s life to discover everything she believed about her friend had been a lie. On top of the other tragedies that Claudie has recently had to deal with, you can’t help but feel sorry for her, and hope that she’ll find some closure in the end.