What is this about?
Martin and Mandy’s idyllic life is torn apart when someone from Mandy’s past comes knocking at their door and kidnaps her. But that is only the beginning a wild ride that pulls Martin back to journalism and Sydney.
What else is this about?
This is the third in the Martin Scarsden series and despite having not read book 2, I didn’t really feel like I missed out on anything. This book is crisply plotted, and gives you enough to make sense of what’s going on.
Blurb
He violated her past and haunts her present.
Now he’s threatening their future.
She breathes deeply, trying to quell the rising sense of panic. A detective came to her home, drugged her and kidnapped her. She tries to make sense of it, to imagine alternatives, but only one conclusion is possible: it’s her past come to claim her.
Martin Scarsden’s new life seems perfect, right up until the moment it’s shattered by a voicemail: a single scream, abruptly cut off, from his partner Mandaly Blonde.
Racing home, he finds an unconcious man sprawled on the floor and Mandy gone. Someone has abducted her.
But who, and why?
So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life so deep she has never mentioned it.
And for the first time, Mandy finds denial impossible, now the body of a mystery man has been discovered, a man whose name she doesn’t know, a man she was engaged to marry when he died. It’s time to face her demons once and for all; it’s time she learned how to trust.
Set in a Sydney riven with corruption and nepotism, privilege and power, Trust is the third riveting novel from award-winning and internationally acclaimed writer Chris Hammer.
While I had some issues with the first in the series, Scrublands, Trust pretty much lays them to rest.
Martin and Mandy are living the quiet life, away from the big city, with Mandy’s son, Liam. However, one day when Martin is playing with Liam on the beach he gets a call from Mandy, only to realise she’s been kidnapped.
And that’s where the story begins
In Scrublands, I had issues with some of the pacing choices Hammer made that robbed the story of any urgency for me. And as much as I enjoyed the skill with which he created his secondary characters, I wanted to know more about Martin.
In Trust, Chris Hammer begins the story quickly, and keeps the pacing going right until the very end. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that Mandy is rescued, because really that’s about the least interesting thing in this book.
She reunites with Martin in Sydney, but there finds herself digging into her past — into her relationship with Tarquin Molloy, the man she was about to marry before he disappeared. Delving into Mandy’s past highlighted that her insecurities from her past, compounded by Tarquin cheating on her and disappearing has shaped her current relationship with Martin in ways. She loves him, but she also doesn’t trust herself enough to trust him in some ways.
When Tarquin’s body is found, her experiences of her past are reset and Mandy discovers just how much she didn’t know about him.
At the same time, Martin finds Mandy’s past is dovetailing with an investigation his former editor, Max, asked him to help on. Except, Max is now dead, and all signs point to a secret society, whose membership contains the heaviest of heavy hitters in Sydney society.
This is a society that began with a few men who were joined by their experiences in the War, and who trusted each other. They helped each other advance, and membership got more elite — judges, lawyers and deputy commissioners. But then, things began to change, and that was what brought Max onto the story — and then murdered.
The plot is complex, and one that sprawls across years, companies and countries. Hammer expertly brings together different strands that kept me engrossed right to the end. Trust is a running theme in the book, and especially in the secret society – and even more so when it strays very far from it’s original intention.
While there are various secondary characters in the book, it is Martin and Mandy that are the centre of attention — their lives before they met each other, and their lives as a couple. The same theme of trust exists with Mandy and Martin, with cracks beginning to show as the story progresses. Mandy begins to doubt him more, and even though he inadvertently lays those issues to rest in this book, I was never sure that Martin understood what she was going through as he was so wrapped up in finding out why Max was murdered. It makes for promising future instalments in this series.
Trust is one of those stories that starts small, and just grows and grows and just would not let me go until the end
Here are all the awesome bloggers that are part of this tour! Be sure to check them out!
Great review.. but in that last paragraph I think you mean Martin, not Max
I do indeed, thank you! And you’re next on thee blog tour!
I really liked Scrublands, but haven’t read the second book. Thanks for mentioning that missing book two won’t make a difference in enjoying this one. I’m in for this one.
This was so focused on the characters and it made all the difference.
I love when the action starts early in a book and doesn’t let up!
Yes! And some great, interesting characterization!
I can’t help but love a book, any book, where a secret society somehow plays part. Sounds like a good one! And I’m glad you enjoyed it more than the first one.
I agree; I need more of the secret society!
I’m always a huge fan of an action thriller, and this one sounds like a great fit. Hugs, RO
It was indeed!