Adam Croft is a British author, best known for the Kempston Hardwick Mysteries and his Knight & Culverhouse thrillers. In 2015, Her Last Tomorrow quickly became one of the biggest-selling self-published books of the year. His work has won him critical acclaim as well as four Amazon bestsellers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – sometimes we all need a bit of escapism in our lives. Whether its escaping from adulthood and indulging in junk food, or escaping from reality with a trashy film (the more ridiculous action the better), or escaping the routine noise of life with our favourite music, it’s good for the soul to scratch this itch once in a while.
Currently scratching my itch is author Adam Croft, whose series of self-published Kindle thrillers are my new favourite junk food. I’ve been consuming a novel for a day for the past week and I don’t think I can stop. Croft’s mind is like a Hollywood machine of action plots, unbelievable twists, and gritty characters. He’s not a high brow writer, but nor does he try to be. He writes characters well, if a little clunky in places, but ultimately, they’re human and relatable and his books are imaginative and exciting.
Tell Me I’m Wrong was my first foray into Croft’s world and I loved every minute of the (about) four hours it took me to consume. I’m not going to reveal any spoilers (the strapline indicates a “killer twist”) but this story did pull me in different directions. My suspicions were thrown throughout, first onto the husband, then onto the wife, then back to the husband. Whilst I kind of saw the twist coming, I did not expect the husband’s story to turn out the way it did. I did not see that coming!
Next came Closer To You, another Adam Croft novel consumed in a single sitting (admittedly whilst I was “working from home” – shh…) Closer To You tells the story of unlucky in love Grace and her online dating match, Tom. Creepy and suspenseful, we watch as Grace’s life slowly starts to unravel, seemingly innocuously at first, before gaining momentum and reaching a fatal crescendo. The storyline cleverly touches on modern social issues, such as the safety of online dating, and the treacherous ground of psychological mind games and gaslighting. It is difficult to know who’s at fault to begin with: is Grace’s best friend jealous of her fledging relationship? Is Grace rushing things with Tom because of her previous relationship history? Is Tom really full of shit, or is Grace untrusting after being burnt by her previous partner? If I could reach into the pages of one book and administer a swift wake-up slap to one of the characters, it would be this book (and the character would be Grace).
Her Last Tomorrow executed what I first thought was a fairly outlandish plot, extremely well. What if you had to kill your wife to save your daughter? Is it ever okay to sacrifice one life for that of another? The idea for Her Last Tomorrow is smart and unique. Whilst I admit there were (numerous) times throughout where I just wanted to scream at Nick to go to the god damn police, if he did, then we wouldn’t have a race-against-time plotline that’s part-ridiculous-part-bloody-exciting and that simultaneously runs a pretty flimsily-veiled dig at the British Police Force’s use of time and resources now, would we?
I’m taking a break for now, but I do have In Her Image and The Perfect Lie lined up in my Kindle library ready to go.
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