Witness: An Ash Park Novel by Meghan O’Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book starts with a boy watching a woman giving birth in the presence of “Father” under his watchful gaze, just like all of the other times this had happened, but he couldn’t say or do anything because it would make him angry and that is the last thing he wanted to do.Detective Petrosky and his partner go to investigate a burglary, it is something lighter than the usual predators and their victims, but when he sees an expensive looking watch on the table and nothing else being disturbed, apart from some broken picture frames and a whole lot of blood, it’s looking highly likely that the break in was just secondary, especially with who had their house broken into. This new case brings back memories of a old one where domestic abuse was involved until the victim had had time to decompress and quickly retracted their statement and decided not to press charges, but as they question the owner of the house, his answers don’t tally with the evidence inside and it is the same thing when they talk to the neighbour who called it in, her description of the person she saw running away from the house is the same as a case from the past, but the person who is being described is dead adding yet more questions than answers to the case, especially when the blood results come back as a match for the dead person as well, which makes them a lot more alive.

As they try to find more leads to follow, the case becomes more and more bizarre and more questions than answers keep popping up, especially when the dead woman was kidnapped and involved in a car accident not too long before she died in a warehouse fire with her husband a brother in law, even more frustrating is that the case file has disappeared, so they decide to go and talk to someone who was involved. While talking to them, similarities between the dead woman and the domestic abuse victims cases appear, but it still doesn’t give any more clarification, just more questions again. As Petrosky finds out more about the family of the burglary victim, he gets an increasingly bad feeling that there is more to the case than meets the eye, but when he finds out that an old partner was involved in the original case, it leads to more suspicion, but these questions are not ones to be answered as the individual died, but his widow might be able to shed some light on it. When Petrosky suddenly comes across Shannon in the course of the investigation, even though she lives nowhere nearby, she tells him some information which shocks him.

Will Petrosky be able to solve the crime and the mystery surrounding a woman who is supposed to be dead and why she came back, all while battling to keep himself from getting too involved, especially when the case is so close to home? This is a thriller which will keep you guessing until the end and is as action packed as it can be as the detectives try to untangle the web of lies and deceit they find themselves in the middle of.

Reviewed by @roxsannel

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