Author: Claire McGowan

Publisher: Thomas and Mercer

ISBN: 9781542019972

A woman becomes a key suspect in a murder case based on her connection to another murder years earlier. While she knows she’s innocent in both situations, she also keeps secrets from those closest to her. Claire McGowan features fairly likeable characters in a plot that crawls until the somewhat predictable ending in her latest book I Know You.

Rachel Caldwell loves her home in the Lake district in a small town where neighbors know one another and leave their doors unlocked during the day. It’s a quiet place and far away from the big cities where people might recognize her from before her life as Rachel. She’s worked hard for nearly 20 years to remake herself, and she wants nothing more than to take care of the animals in her volunteer job at the shelter and to enjoy her new relationship with Alex.

Then one morning, as she’s walking her dog, Rachel stumbles across a body in the woods behind her house. On instinct, she runs. This isn’t the first time she’s encountered a dead body, and Rachel wants nothing to do with the person who died. Soon enough, however, the police come knocking on her door. The dead person turns out to be Anna Devine, Alex’s estranged wife, and now the police are looking at Rachel sideways.

She does everything she can to convince them she had nothing to do with Anna’s death, but then someone leaks the truth about her past. Rachel is actually Casey Adams who, at the age 19, went to work as a nanny for the Safran family in Los Angeles. While she’s there, three of the Safrans were killed and Rachel was convicted of the murders and sent to death row where she spent almost five years.

David Safran was a Hollywood producer who Rachel wanted to impress to launch her acting career. His wife, Abigail, was moody at best, impossible to please. Five-year-old Madison, a pageant queen, confused Rachel more than anything else. Baby Carson was the only bright spot in Rachel’s days, but taking care of a baby was exhausting. None of her frustrations, though, compared to the reality of living in prison.

With the help of an old friend, she managed to get the conviction overturned on appeal. Since that time, Casey became Rachel and she’s wanted nothing to do with law enforcement. Now, though, the cops are practically living on her doorstep and accusing her of murder. She even gets arrested, although the police have to let her go for lack of evidence. At 19 Rachel felt helpless and lost, but she’s not helpless anymore. Prison taught her to look out for herself, and she’s determined to find out the truth about this latest murder no matter what it takes.

Author Claire McGowan sets up an interesting premise in a young British girl coming to the States to work for an American family. She draws clear lines between American and British cultures, showing how the norms in one country can create misperceptions in the other. The development of Rachel as a character is sharp and nuanced.

Where the book falls behind, however, is in its pacing, literally. The story flips between Rachel’s time in LA as a teen nanny and the present after the murder of Anna. Early in the book, the narrative approach heightens the tension. At some point, however, it starts to draw it out to the point of feeling slack. An inordinate amount of time is spent first with Rachel in present-day England and then with her as a young woman, and much of the narrative tends to repeat itself in different words. 

Because there are a limited number of characters, readers will find the main story question—Who killed Anna Devine?—easy to answer long before Rachel gets there. At some point, Rachel’s quest to discover the murderer’s identity morphs into a quest to find the truth about what happened when she was in LA. The juxtaposition of the two murder cases works some of the time; at other times, it feels forced.

For those looking for a standard thriller, this might work. I recommend readers Borrow I Know You.