I'm going to admit, I totally judged this book by it's cover. When I saw it I wasn't expecting it to be my cup of tea. I was definitely wrong. I actually really enjoyed it. So lesson learnt. Never judge a book by its cover. So The Doves* by Heidi James is a murder mystery with the story switching between the present and 1989. As you may know these aren't normally my favourite to read as I can find them hard to keep up with. This however, is easy to follow and helps with the understanding of the characters and the plot. It's written beautifully.




"When award-winning journalist Marcus Murray's latest story involves a corrupt alliance between a UK bank, the arms trade and the government, it seems he has triumphed again in his quest for the truth. But he is accused of fabrication and nothing in his life makes sense any more, including the disappearance twenty years ago of his best friend, Melanie. Why did she vanish, and who is the body recently discovered in a Kent orchard? A timeless story of how love and enduring friendship shape who we are, the novel exposes the fault lines in our own reality and who and what we believe to be true, including ourselves."



Marcus is sent back to his hometown to write about a body showing up. Whilst there his life is thrown into turmoil as he is accused of fabricating evidence for his latest story involving corruption between The UK Bank, the arms trade and the Government.

Whilst back home, staying with his mum in his childhood room old memories resurface. He starts to question the disappearance of his best friend, Melanie, 20 years ago. Is he paranoid or are things not adding up? He even starts to question his own memories of the time when she disappeared. They were only 15 after all.

This book looks at friendship, how our memories shape us as well as some of the issues faced when growing up gay. I did love the fact that the main character was gay and the storyline includes his issues coming to terms with it as a child and trying not to make himself a target to bullies but his sexuality isn't the main focus of the story. I loved the characters and getting to know them all.

I really enjoyed So The Doves. It's a fast paced book which kept me gripped until the end. I couldn't put it down at the last few chapters as I needed to know what happened. I did find that the corruption/fabricating evidence storyline was kind of forgotten at the end and I'm still not entirely sure what the result was or what happened with it. However, the mysterious body/Melanie storyline definitely made up for it.