📖 Book review ~ Dead to Me by Gytha Lodge

Penguin Micheal Joseph
3 July 2025

Thanks to th republished for my copy of this book

 

You thought he was the one. You broke his heart. But now, he might be the only one who can save your life...

Anna and Reid weren't meant to be, apparently. She's a fiery American journalist; he's a stoic British detective - it was nice while it lasted, and then it really wasn't.

And Anna is over it now anyway. She's on the scent of a career-making story - a suspicious death amongst the cloistered elite world of Cambridge University, with a slice of police corruption too. 

It's just, the more she investigates, the more there's only one person she wants to talk to about it. She starts writing Reid a long, sprawling email - it's not like she's ever planning to send it.

Until suddenly, she's in desperate trouble. The problem with chasing a killer is that sometimes, you run right into them.

And the only detective she can trust with her life is the one who broke her heart..

📖 My Review..

Anna is a good journalist who makes her assignments particularly personal so when she is tasked with discovering more about the mysterious death of a young Cambridge University student Anna must make herself appear authentic and in doing so she puts herself in grave danger from those who will stop at nothing to prevent her from discovering the truth. 

The premise of the story is an interesting one especially as it is written from the differing points of view of Anna, her father, Seaton and her ex-police detective boyfriend, Reid. Each of them have a complicated story to share and it was enjoyable trying to work out the complex relationship Anna had with both Seaton and Reid.

The pacing is slow and takes a bit of getting used to, especially the way that Anna tries to infiltrate a close friendship group. I had to try and remember who everyone was and the role they may have played in the unexplained death of a young woman who, at the height of her university career, had her life taken away in complicated circumstances. The plot picked up pace in the last third of the novel , which I thought gave it an edginess and right until the final denouement I really didn’t know who was going to be responsible. 

Dead to Me is an interesting psychological thriller with enough plot twists which kept me guessing until the end.

About the Author

Gytha Lodge lives in Cambridge with her son. She Lies in Wait, her debut novel, was a Sunday Times bestseller, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and an international bestseller. Set in the New Forest and the surrounding area, Lodge's highly-acclaimed DCI Jonah Sheens series also includes Watching From the Dark, Lie Beside Me, Little Sister and A Killer in the Family. Dead To Me is her first standalone thriller.

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