#BookReview of #Unsolved by @h_critchlow @canelocrime #UnsolvedReadalong #TandemReadalong #TandemCollectiveUK

He won’t rest until he finds out the truth…

Cal Lovett is obsessed with finding justice for the families of missing people. His true-crime podcast is his way of helping others, even if he can’t help himself.

His sister, Margot, disappeared when he was a child. Only one man seems to know something. But he’s behind bars and can’t be trusted.

So when the family of a missing Scottish woman begs for his help, he heads to Aberdeenshire in search of the truth.

Does Cal have what it takes to unearth the secrets hiding in the hills? And what if he finds something that leads him back to the heart of his own family’s past?

Juno modelling Heather Crictchlow’s Unsolved

Thank you so so much to Tandem Collective UK for letting me be on my first Readalong with Unsolved.

So Unsolved is a debut crime fiction novel by Heather Critchlow. I was totally drawn to the book from the opening chapter. I loved the story of Cal Lovett, who is a true crime podcaster whose own sister went missing many years ago and was never found. This has driven him to host Finding Justice, a podcast that tries to give the victims of crime a voice. I loved Cal’s character, really cleverly written as someone who wants to help other families with missing relatives but also all the while struggling mentally with his own devasting past.

In Unsolved we see him head up to Scotland to help the family of Layla, who has asked Cal to find their daughter’s presumed killer ( they don’t have a body). In amongst so family challenges of his own, Cal takes his daughter Chrissie with him as she has been the victim of cyberbullying and needs to get away from her school.

I loved Unsolved, it was a very quick and easy read. The characters are really marvellous and I instantly wanted to read more about Cal and his daughter Chrissie, I suspect they will become a duo in future novels. The plot was also very well written, and in particular, I love that the victims of crime are heavily at the forefront of Unso0lved, as sometimes they get forgotten especially with serial killers.

I have to admit I did guess who the perp was, but I did not work out how Unsolved would get to that point, so the ending was a great crescendo and a surprise to me!.

An all-round excellent debut novel from an author who I look forward to reading the next book. And a really enjoyable readalong with the group too. A 4-star rating from me.

Heather Critchlow grew up in rural Aberdeenshire and trained as a business journalist after studying history and social science at the University of Cambridge. Her short stories have appeared in crime fiction anthologies Afraid of the Light, Afraid of the Christmas Lights and Afraid of the Shadows. She lives in St Albans, UK.

You can buy Unsolved HERE

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You can find Canelo Crimes’ other titles HERE

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