Safe House

Finished May 18

Safe House by Jo Jakeman

This suspense novel follows Steffi Finn as she starts a new life under the name Charlie Miller. Charlie for a girl in school who always seemed to have it together, and Miller for her mother's maiden name. The plot moves back and forth in time, but every chapter is dated and titled with the character it focuses on. 

After Steffi's boyfriend Conor started work in London, their long-distance relationship didn't work as well, and they split up. Shortly after that she met Lee Fisher, a charming and handsome man who swept her off her feet. He soon moved in with her, although he had frequent absences as he worked as a pharmaceutical salesman and had a lot of travel as part of his job. He asked her to stop drinking alcohol and he agreed to give up smoking in return. She stuck to that until a leaving party for a co-worker, where she drank a few and he got angry when she came home. She went to bed and he went for a drive to cool off, but it is only a couple of weeks later when she is approached by police about that evening and whether he was with her all night. After talking with him, when he told her he was only gone for a short while and slept in the spare room, she gave him an alibi, and the missing young woman is found dead shortly after. 

When she showed up to a conference he was attending to surprise him, both of them are surprised, him at her presence, and her at his absence from the hotel and his condition when he reappeared. When she hears later about another woman found dead after a similar situation she retracts her alibi and tells the police after his latest trip and what she saw. When he is arrested, he tries unsuccessfully to blame her, but she is charged with giving a false alibi, and serves time in jail. Many people are mad that another woman died because of her earlier alibi, and a lot of them think she must have known of her partner's crimes. When the courts decide she doesn't need protection after her release, she takes matters into her own hands. 

Conor helps her find a new home, one that is dilapidated and needs a lot of work, which she is willing to do, and she takes her new name of Charlie Miller. She finds herself making friends quickly, taken under the wings of a group of women that regularly meet for a book club and other outings. She also meets a older neighbour and finds herself making another unexpected friend. But she has enemies too, one that already knows where she is, and one that is determined to find her. 

Her new home and community may not be as safe as she had hoped. 

I really enjoyed this book, finding myself reading it all in one sitting. I just had to know what happened. The character of Steffi/Charlie was interesting and complex, and truly sorry for what she'd done. The plot was also well done, and left me guessing until the end. You got a real sense of Charlie's fears as well as the things that brought her some moments of content. A great read.