What You Did

Product Information

Rachel thinks her life has started to come together, she lives in the countryside and has a boyfriend she loves albeit he is separated from his wife and has a small child. One morning on her regular walks with her dog she spots a body. What does she do? She runs it is the wife of her boyfriend. Should she report it? Well she has her reasons, 20 years ago when she was known as Casey she decided to fly to Los Angeles to become a Nanny thinking it was a stepping stone to fame. So first of all, I think this was a very well written plot. Execution wise, the dual timeline with the alternating POV’s between Rachel and Casey was amazing as it kept the suspense and excitement alive. Mary is a mother of two who is on maternity leave and is in desperate need of some sleep. Her children keep her up at night. Tim, her neighbour is a former journalist who suffers from PTSD and can't sleep at night. These two are separately looking out the window one night and think they see something sinister occurring in one of the (abandoned) homes across the street. There is also a girl missing from the neighbourhood. Mary and Tim later bond and try to piece together what they saw that night and begin to connect it to the missing girl.

We have theses two characters both who are sleep deprived for different reasons trying to solve the mystery of a missing girl after they both are sure they saw her in the attic room of a house across from them which leads them getting into all kinds of trouble, I liked this idea but I didn’t find it terribly believable. Rachel lives a quiet life in the peaceful countryside, content with her perfect man and her lovely dog. But when she stumbles upon a body in the woods one day, all that shatters. She knows what she has to do: run. Don’t get accused of murder. But when this victim is identified as her boyfriend’s estranged wife, Rachel realises she’s already the prime suspect. I have heard great things about this author’s work, so I will have to give her another try-but this one unfortunately, was a MISS for me! I really enjoyed my first read of a Claire McGowan novel and look forward to reading more from this author.I had mixed feelings about this one. The premise was interesting albeit a little far fetched. Two unconnected insomniacs think they see a missing girl trapped in an empty house. The rest of the book is these characters trying to get the police to take them seriously whilst making various unsavoury discoveries along the way. There are two main narrators of this story: Tim and Mary. As the story starts they are complete strangers, but soon they will be united by their present circumstances. The story is set mainly in the outskirts of London during a boiling hot summer. A local nineteen-year-old girl called Samantha has been abducted in the dead of night, walking home from her shift as a care assistant in the Care Home. The local police have been overwhelmed by sightings.

I like the characters in this book. It's told from Mary and Tim's POV as you get to know each. I was a bit disappointed in the ending though. To me it seemed to just happen and then that was that. No real closure maybe. Or explanation. Something was just missing. She ignores obvious tells and clues; when she unearths clues that jeopardizes her lover's alibi, she dismisses them and blames the errors on the witness. Absorbing, timely, and beautifully written, What You Did is a superior psychological thriller from a major talent." - Mark Edwards

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

As someone who has spent a lot of my professional life in care homes, my jaw did drop in response to what was going on in one home in the middle of the night. I can't quite imagine anyone getting away with it, but you never know. The premise is what I liked best, the suburban mom who is on parental leave and trying to solve a disappearing girl case is brilliant.

In the present, Rachel stumbles upon a body and runs. Was it a coincidence? Is she as innocent as she seems? And what really happened 20 years ago? years later, Rachel finds the body of her boyfriends' ex wife and instead of calling it in, she goes home and puts the kettle on. It won't take long before she is in the middle of a media storm once more.

Customer reviews

Mary is supposedly a brilliant lawyer, although on maternity leave. However, she makes terrible decision after terrible decision that someone that smart would unlikely make. She’s also irresponsible in putting her children in danger at times, although she does cop to it eventually. While I enjoyed some of the OTT moments, I feel like it would’ve worked better if the book was aiming to be a darkly comedic mystery. The ending was pretty ridiculous and implausible, but that’s nothing new. Ok so this could've been a guilty pleasure read but McGowan punched above the belt by making Mary a lawyer who didn't know the law from her left foot. If she had just been a SAHM or like a cupcake baker on maternity leave, that would've been fine. ANYTHING but a lawyer.

The story flip flops between her life in the present and the events that led up to prison in the USA. The writing was good, the characters were well developed, and if you like mysteries, I thought it was spot on. I liked the whole idea and the execution. The author has done a great job of building an atmosphere of danger and confusion in the current part of the plot. You really feel that Rachel is being hounded and that she is alone in this situation. The police suspect her more and more and can arrest her at any time, accusing her of a crime she did not commit. Or did she? If you have a sordid past, isn't the first place you go to a big city so everyone doesn't know your name and business? Rachel is a typical heroine in these types of books; she's annoying, frustrating, and whines often.

This book is quite entraining and gripping. I enjoyed reading it over the course of a few weeks (on and off) and it succeeded in keeping me interested in the book and the fate of the characters. Mary and Tim decide to become amateur detectives when they think they see a missing girl in an abandoned house. Their suspicions are all based on not very much, and they put their lives in danger because they can’t sleep and are bored.