Don’t Make A Sound By David Jackson

Don’t Make a Sound by David Jackson truly held me in its grip from the opening pages and I finished it in a single day, staying up till midnight to finish it. The author sends his readers running for cover in this extraordinarily creepy, disturbing and tense outing.

The Benson’s seem to be a normal happy little family. There’s mum Harriet, Dad Malcolm and 10 year old Daisy. However there is one very disturbing problem.  Daisy is not the Bensons’ daughter. She was kidnapped three years ago when she was just 7. She spends her days and nights locked like a prisoner in a sound-proof room in the house, a room where she must eat, sleep, wash and do everything to please her parents.

And now the Bensons think it is time to add a new ‘daughter’ to their home: six-year-old Poppy Devlin. Malcolm has Pooy in his sights for weeks, having done his research and knowing every daily move of Poppy and her mum and dad, Craig and Maria.

When Poppy goes missing, it’s just the start of one of the most gruelling and emotional investigations yet for DS Nathan Cody of Liverpool’s Major Incident Team, a man whose life has been plagued by the mental and physical scars of a disastrous undercover mission, and his sidekick DC Megan Webley. Then another girl Ellie goes missing, again kidnapped by Malcolm. But this time things go horribly wrong with the parents of Ellie both killed by Malcolm.

This is a brilliant tour-de-force from first page to last as DS Nathan Cody investigates the chilling child kidnappings. Even though right from the beginning we know who the perpetrator is, the author manages to produce and maintain the tension and suspense needed to make it a winner. It is spine-tingling and with a sensational cracker at the end that will put readers in a spin. This is one of the best thrillers I have ever read!