Barb's Book Reviews: Review of "It's Not What You Think: A Novel of Suspense" by Clare Mackintosh

Sunday, September 27, 2026

Review of "It's Not What You Think: A Novel of Suspense" by Clare Mackintosh

Nadeeka Prasanna was still smarting two years after divorcing serial cheater Scott Hadley when she met Jamie Golding on a dating app. Nadeeka and Jamie got along great during dates and phone calls, and fell in love quickly.

So when Jamie lost his job in Sheffield, he got new employment near Nadeeka, and moved in with Nadeeka and her daughters, Maya (9) and Nish (6). Everything went fine as long as Scott wasn't spreading venom and bad-mouthing Jamie to the girls.

After ten happy months together, Nadeeka is sure Jamie is being faithful until she speaks to Jamie from work, and hears a woman's voice in the background. Almost hysterical, Nadeeka jumps in her car and races home to catch Jamie in the act. Instead, Nadeeka finds police cars in the street and detectives in the house. Jamie has been murdered, stabbed to death.

Detective Inspector Colin Burton, who heads the investigation, is very gentle with Nadeeka, who's shocked and shaking. Burton offers Nadeeka his jacket, puts her in his car, makes sure she has somewhere to go, says he'll be her liaison officer, and takes her cell phone, saying she'll get it back soon.

Nadeeka and her daughters, who are unaware of the tragedy, go stay with Scott's mom Kath (the girls' grandmother). Kath is a warm woman who's always been a wonderful support, even after Nadeeka divorced Scott.

When Nadeeka returns home for fresh clothes the next day, her house has been professionally cleaned. No trace of a crime.

After a few days, Nadeeka stops by the police station to get her phone back. The police officer at the desk checks the computer, and explains there's no record of Jamie Golding's murder, or a police investigation, or a Detective Inspector Colin Burton...and there's no body. Nadeeka is shocked, the cops are suspicious, and the case lands on the desk of DCI Lauren Caldwell.

Caldwell comes to believe Nadeeka's story, and gets on the job with her team, which includes her fiancé DS Fraser Hogan. Lauren and Fraser's wedding is in two weeks, and the planning still occupies some of their attention, even during work hours.

In the course of their inquiries, Caldwell's squad discovers the murder victim, Jamie Golding, regularly went to a pub with members of a right-wing anti-immigration group. Moreover, Jamie's fingerprints are on a lighter fluid bottle used in an arson attack on a Pakistani-owned convenience store/home. It appears Jamie was in league with terrorists.

Caldwell looks into the 'fake cops' scenario and learns old police uniforms can be bought online, and a cloned credit card was used to pay the cleaning service that scrubbed Nadeeka's home. When a dog-walker discovers Jamie's body in the woods, the body bag - which was likely bought by a coroner's office or funeral home - furthers the police investigation.

Something is hinky, though, because when Caldwell arranges for persons of interest to be brought in for questioning, they quickly make themselves scarce. This points to a leak in the police department.

Caldwell tells Nadeeka Jamie seems to have been an anti-immigration radical, but Nadeeka doesn't believe it. Aside from everything else, Nadeeka is from Sri Lanka, and a bigot wouldn't have fallen in love with her and been so wonderful to her daughters Nish and Maya. So as the police try to paint Jamie into a right-wing extremist box, Nadeeka tries to do the exact opposite.

Unfortunately for Nadeeka, she learns Jamie did some odd things, like remove the photo of himself with Nadeeka, Nish, and Maya from his work office; try to prevent Nish and Maya from being in their school's all-faith Christmas pageant; reserve the book Mein Kampf at the library; and more.

In the course of the murder inquiries, Caldwell's team discovers right-wing terrorists are planning a deadly attack during Christmas, which is a few days away. This leads to a joint operation between Caldwell's detectives and the Counter-Terrorism Unit, and there's a race against time to discover the time and place of the attack.

All this leads to an exciting denouement, and to the solution of Jamie's murder.

The story is narrated from the points of view of Nadeeka, Jamie, and DCI Lauren Caldwell, so we get all sides of the story. Of course, not everything is as it appears on the surface, and there are plenty of surprises.

The novel requires some suspension of disbelief. For instance, if Nadeeka is even slightly familiar with detective movies/series (and her former mother-in-law Kath watches them all), Nadeeka knows a cleaning team doesn't swoop right in and remove every trace of a crime. There are additional hard-to-believe elements in the story, but mentioning them would give away spoilers.

The novel has a unique premise and is timely, with anti-immigration sentiment being so pervasive. Overall, I liked the book and recommend it to suspense fans.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Richard Armitage, Samuel Barnett, and Tuppence Middleton, who do a fine job.

Thanks to Negtalley, Claire Mackintosh, and Sourcebooks Audio for an ARC of the audiobook.

Rating: 35 stars

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Barb's Book Reviews

Sunday, September 27, 2026

Review of "It's Not What You Think: A Novel of Suspense" by Clare Mackintosh

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