Clare Mackintosh’s I Let You Go is a gripping mystery novel where the protagonist is running away from a past that does not allow her to live in peace. For a debut novel, it makes for a compelling read with surprising twists and turns. Although the storyline keeps you glued to the novel, the main character Jenna Gray seems to be a bit unconvincing and childish. There are too many voices in the novel and sometimes one feels like shaking Jenna out of her sense of victimisation.
The story draws inspiration from the experiences of the author when she was a part of the police force for 12 long years. The book is based on a hit-and-run case that took place in Oxford in 2000 where a nine-year-old boy was killed by joyriders.
Losing her own son in different circumstances, the author says she experienced first hand how emotion can cloud one’s judgement and also affect behavior. Grief and guilt are powerful feelings, and Mackintosh began to wonder how they might affect two women, involved in very different ways in the same incident and the result was, I let You Go.
So we have a heroine who is a romantic and a tragedy queen at the same time, with a web of mystery around her. Jenna is a runaway and nobody knows anything about her.
Mackintosh begins the novel with the vivid description of a tragedy when a five-year-old boy Jacob is killed in front of his mother in a split second. The frenetic happenings build up the novel’s pace but here is the catch.
It is hard to decipher just who is the perpetrator and who is the victim and a bit of confusion prevails as the author tries to create a mystery around two characters, Jenna and the mother who has lost her child.
Two story lines run parallel, with alternate chapters devoted to the tragic life of Jenna and the police investigation being done by Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and police officer Kate.
The police officers are determined to catch the culprit despite the case being shut by superior officers for want of clues and further evidence.
With this incident looming large in the background, Jenna moves out from the city and walks away from everything she knows, to start a new life in Penfach.
Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of the cruel November night that changed her life for ever.
Ray Stevens, who is seeking justice for a mother who is living every parent’s worst nightmare, is slowly being consumed by the case and his family life is getting affected as misunderstandings arise between him and his wife.
The police work day and night to uncover the truth but Jenna who begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in a new place, seems to be doomed. Her past catches up with her and her new life with her new boyfriend crumbles.
The description of the Welsh countryside and its characters is beautiful. It has a sense of lyrical foreboding. The cold oceanfront with its cliffs, the typical caravans in these regions and the stark stone cottages with the high tides lashing the village, remain etched in one’s memory. "The sand becomes pockmarked from the rain, and the swollen tide begins to sweep away the shapes I have made in the wet sand at the bottom of the beach, undoing the triumphs as well as the mistakes. It has become routine to begin each day by writing my own name close to the shore and I shiver to see it sucked into the sea. The rain is insistent, working its way inside my coat."
The author manages to keep the secrets of Jenna very well-hidden and they unfold only in the last part of the novel.
This psychological thriller novel is racy in parts but slows down in the middle and then picks up the pace again in the last half.
Make it a point to read the book during the weekends as you may find the plot a bit confusing. Though promising, this is a story that could have lived up to its full potential with just a bit more care.