If Something Happens To Me by Alex Finlay

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

If Something Happens To Me

Summary: For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken.

With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him.

Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…

Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told from several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The story cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

This was my first Alex Finlay book and while I did enjoy it, I expected more from it.

As I was reading and I was enjoying it- these separate storylines that I could tell would tie together- there came a point where it seemed the author got to thinking “What if this crazy shit happened?” And then let’s add this and this and so on and so forth. So while I do like my thriller type books to be action packed, this was almost pushing my limit on what I could feasibly swallow in fiction scenarios.

What I liked:

I thought the cover was great. A little intriguing!

I loved when Poppy met the young podcaster and he was like listen to episode 18.

I thought the ending was a nice way to tie up (or mostly tie up) things.

Bottom line: I would read another book by Alex Finlay. I wish this one would have had more of an angle from podcasters/internet sleuths because I feel we could have been entertained by that POV.

*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*