Seven Days by Robert Rutherford

 

Alice Logan hasn’t had contact with her father for fourteen years. Not only is he on a different continent but he’s also on death row for a brutal murder. Her father has always maintained his innocence and when the family receives the news that his execution date has been set for seven days time Alice’s sister begs her to investigate.

Seven Days by Robert Rutherford is an adrenaline-fuelled mix of legal thriller and murder mystery. Protagonist Alice Logan is a solicitor in north-east England. Having lived in the States for a number of years she has recently returned to England to be with her mother and sister who had returned following her parent’s divorce.

Alice has never had the best relationship with her father. She feels she’s responsible for her parent’s divorce having been the one that told her mother about his cheating. Her sister Fiona is much younger and still has a relationship, having been too young to fully understand her father's behaviour. It is Fiona that breaks the news regarding their father’s execution date and puts pressure on Alice.

Having practiced law in America gives Alice the connections and understanding of the legal system she needs when she caves into her sister’s request to help. Rather than waste time on transatlantic flights, the author has placed one of the police officers involved in her father’s arrest in France. I felt that all of this kept the story grounded and well within the realms of possibility. Upon arriving in Paris, Alice forms an uneasy alliance with the police officer concerned, Luc Boudreaux, but it is obvious he’s not going to change his opinion that the right man was arrested.

Digging through past crimes brings up a case almost identical to her father’s. This puts Alice and Luc at loggerheads, with neither willing to give an inch or accept that there may be some merit in what the other person is saying. Trying to find out more about the new case puts Alice at risk in a strange city where she knows no one. You can feel her fear as she begins to wonder if she is being watched constantly. Can she trust anyone, even Luc? This also raises a number of moral issues. Firstly, how do you defend someone you know is guilty? Secondly, if someone is acquitted or released from prison (on appeal or conviction overturned) and they go on to commit a worse crime, how do you square that with your conscience? I do enjoy it when a book makes you think and question events.

Eventually, the investigation means that Alice has to head to New York. It’s in this last quarter of the book that the action really ramps up. I was holding my breath as we got closer and closer to answers. Robert Rutherford plays his cards close to his chest, giving nothing away, as we race to the nail-biting conclusion.

Seven Days by Robert Rutherford will be published on 25^th April 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for a review copy.

Author Details

Robert Rutherford had a random mix of jobs before taking the dive into crime writing; he's been a bookseller, pizza deliverer, karate instructor, football coach, and HR Manager. He lives on the North East Coast with his wife, children & overly-needy dog, and is a founding member of the Northern Crime Syndicate crime-writers group.

He also writes as Robert Scragg, with "What Falls Between The Cracks", the first in his Porter & Styles series, written under Robert Scragg, being chose as a New Writing North pick as one of the 2019 Read Regional books of the year. Rob’s work has also seen him win the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction in 2021, as well as being shortlisted for a CWA Dagger in 2021 and 2022.