No Safe Place by Hannah Brennan

 

The first page of a medical paper left close to the body of a victim of a brutal stabbing has the police trying to identify the five anonymous patients mentioned in the study. Is one of them responsible, or could they be potential targets?

I have a copy of the audiobook Nothing Left Behind to listen to. When I discovered this is the second book in the Detective Liz Field series by Hannah Brennan, I decided to read the first book, No Safe Place, to familiarise myself with the characters.

We are straight into the action as the book opens with the brutal stabbing of psychologist David Moore. DCI Liz Field and her partner, DS Riley, are close by when the emergency call is received. Close to the body is the first page of an article about the treatment of severe OCD in teenagers. One of the people who witnessed the aftermath of the stabbing is Callum, who lives with his ex-girlfriend, Lily. What the police don't realise immediately is that both Callum and Lily were part of the study. This gives the reader a slight advantage over the police.

Through alternating chapters, we follow DCI Field, Callum and Lily in the aftermath of the crime. All of the characters are written sympathetically. For Liz Field, the case hits close to home as her own son struggled with mental health issues as a teenager, and she still worries about him even though he's now an adult. Callum and Lily met during their stay in the psychiatric hospital where they were treated by David Moore. Their relationship ended a year ago, but Lily has struggled to move out as she feels responsible for Callum, particularly given his ongoing mental health issues.

Callum is the most interesting character, the one I felt most sympathetic towards. For the past two years, Callum hasn't left the house; this plays a major part in the storyline. The point at which he is unable to ring the emergency services because of his OCD is gut-wrenching. 

I love a thriller that keeps me engaged, that has me puzzling over who the villain is, that offers unforeseen twists. No Safe Place offers all of these, and at the same time educates. I had a vague idea of what OCD is; repeatedly checking the door is locked, handwashing, and turning switches on and off a specific number of times. This novel put the illness in a whole new light for me, not only giving me a greater understanding of the different ways in which OCD manifests itself, but also in the ways in which lives are disrupted by it.

I'm now looking forward to the second book in the series and seeing how DCI Field's character develops.

Author Details

Hannah Brennan lives in South East London, where she was born and raised.

She studied English Literature at Durham University – alongside British Sign Language, which she uses in her role as a trustee for the Royal Association for Deaf People. After returning from the North East, Hannah has turned her love of pubs into a career, working in marketing and technology for many fantastic British hospitality brands.

Hannah is a fanatic book-collector, with a passion for crime fiction and television. She is also one of the organisers of Greenwich Writers, a South-East London writing group.

Hannah developed OCD as a teenager, and hopes that her debut novel, No Safe Place, may give readers a fresh insight into a frequently misunderstood and misrepresented condition.