The Secret - Katerina Diamond

About the book...

When Bridget Reid wakes up in a locked room, terrifying memories come flooding back – of blood, pain, and desperate fear. Her captor knows things she’s never told anyone. How can she escape someone who knows all of her secrets?

As DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles search for Bridget, they uncover a horrifying web of abuse, betrayal and murder right under their noses in Exeter.

And as the past comes back to haunt her, Grey must confront her own demons. Because she knows that it can be those closest to us who hurt us the most…

About the author...

Katerina Diamond was born in Weston in the seventies, and her parents owned a fish and chip shop in the Greek community. She moved to Thessaloniki in Greece and attended Greek school where she learnt Greek in just 6 months. After her parents’ divorce, they relocated to Devon. After school, and working in her uncle’s fish and chip shop, she went (briefly) to university at Derby, where she met her husband and had two children. Katerina now lives in the East Kent Coast with her husband and children. This is her first novel.

Author post...

Songs I Love with a Secret Theme

Being a bit of a vanilla goth I like a lot of dark music and secrets are often at the heart of that darkness: something no one is allowed to know about, a confidence. I like songs that make me feel a bit uncomfortable – much like anything else in life I like to be challenged, particularly with regards to aspects of my own character that I would ordinarily try to deny. Plus, songs about secrets are a bit sexy.

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret – Queens of the stone age

Well, the whole tone of this song really pulls you in: you listen out for the secret, wait for it, but it never comes. It’s just making sure we know there is a secret to be told and if anyone finds out there will be a problem. Queens of the stone age have a few songs with this general feeling, but another along the same lines is the cracker ‘No One Knows’ – with comes with a great video (and Dave Grohl - Foo Fighters/Nirvana - on drums)

Somewhere Only We Know – Keane

This is more a nostalgic notion of a secret, something shared and personal – something that’s known by two people. It could be a place or it could be a feeling. Whenever I hear this song I think of the children’s book The Secret Garden which was one of my favourite stories as a child. I imagine fingers foraging through walls of ivy to find a hidden latch to a hidden door.

Dirty Little Secret – All American Rejects

It’s worth looking for this video if you haven’t seen it. A group of people have written their secrets on notecards and are holding them in front of their face. Some of the secrets there I can really identify with, things I wouldn’t necessarily even think to admit about myself. I think it’s fascinating the things people are ashamed to admit about themselves.

Just – Radiohead

Well, the song itself isn’t about secrets but the video is just brilliant. A man walking down the street stops and lies down, people walk past, each demanding to know what’s wrong with him and why he is lying down, he says he can’t tell them, but they push and push until eventually he does. Then more and more people lie down as they find out the secret; it leaves them debilitated and unwilling to carry on and people keep asking, knowing that they might also lie down if they find out the answer – even knowing that, they still ask. I think it demonstrated perfectly the need to know secrets and answers, even if we know the truth will hurt us.

My thoughts...

First off I received some interesting book post - a cup cake with a severed finger and then the book - The Secret by Katerina Diamond.  My first thoughts were how cool, brilliant marketing I can't wait to read the book, closely followed by I'm a bit freaked out - I know it's not a real finger - least I hope it's not but..... So when Helena at Avon asked if I'd like to be part of a very 'secret' blog tour for The Secret I jumped at the chance.

This was one of those books that took only pages to sink into.  Within eight pages there was three brutal murders and the tension was palpable.  The story beginning in a brothel with one prostitute escaping murder but quite quickly it's apparent it was her the killers were looking for and now she's on the run.

The Secret is fast paced, gritty and a breathe holding read. Based around an undercover police investigation in Exeter with links to another case and the the Plymouth police force. An undercover officer has gone missing and the clock is ticking for Inspectors Imogen Grey and partner Adrian Miles to find DS Bridget Reid.  They need  to infiltrate the gang responsible for some of the most serious crime in the area.  We're talking serious bad boys, drugs, weapons, prostitution, human trafficking and money laundering headed by the most corrupt villains in the UK.  The story is told from many angles and swings back and forth between the present day and Plymouth two years earlier. The advantage with this is that we glean some back history about Imogen and the reasons behind her transfer to Exeter along with some cross over of characters.  People she thought she had left behind appear here as if to taunt her and remind her of some of her darkest times and the reason she spent a year on the sick! 

This was one of those stories that I was glad I read in the daytime - scenes so graphic and gory I wanted to close the book, but the story was such I couldn't leave it alone.  Katerina Diamond doesn't waste time padding out and fluffing up the story she just dives straight getting to the point and leaving nothing to the imagination - her descriptions are graphic and to the point and will leave you open mouthed and 'Oh My Godding' every other page.

This book is a like a game of cat and mouse, with the protagonist changing with each chapter.  My thoughts and feelings changed more times than in any other book I've read. I worked things out in my own head only to have my opinions changed in the next chapter - knowing who to trust was difficult to decide, made more difficult by some of the police working under cover - what was real and what was not became blurred.

Life should be about discovering new things, pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and trying different things.  I liked the synopsis for this book and really wanted to read it yet I sit here now a couple of weeks after finishing it and I'm still trying to process my thoughts. The content was definitely more graphic than I usually read but was so compelling I just had to read on.

Would I recommend it? - absolutely.  It has to be one of the best written books I've read in a long time. It's darker than most of my friends would read, and when asked if I enjoyed it I'm almost hesitant to say yes, it feels wrong for so many reasons - anyone who has read it will know what I'm talking about. 

I'd urge anyone who enjoys a really good book, that'll make you think, is happy to be shifted outside of their comfort zone to give it a go.  It'll stay with you long after the final page but that's a good thing.  The best kind of book in my opinion is a book that makes you think, that keeps you guessing and Katerina did this with panache.  There are several twists in virtually every chapter that had me virtually talking to myself, silently praying and almost too scared to read on in case I didn't like the outcome, I'm so glad I did and urge you all to read it too.