Publisher: Next Chapter
Reviewer: Kay Weller
What You Don’t Know is the perfect title for this serpentine novel, where it becomes
increasingly difficult to untangle the underlying truth from the knot of strange and sinister
events that surround the main character, Tess.
Tess and Joe live on an island, where the small community looks after one another
and no-one bothers to lock their doors. Joe is a travelling salesman: his job takes him away
from home for most of the week and Tess has always felt safe by herself with only Wilson,
her elderly arthritic labrador, for company. This changes when a series of unsettling events
occur and Tess starts to question her grasp on reality. Odd things are happening to Joe too
and the tension and uncertainty drives a wedge into what was previously, on the surface at
least, a happy and supportive marriage.
Truth. Lies. Trust. Three words that lie at the heart of the novel. How can you trust
someone again if they have lied to you? Can some lies be justified in a certain situation?
How can you trust yourself if you can’t work out what is real and what is imagined and
who can you turn to for help when you start to question everything that you believe? For
me, they were interesting questions to ponder in a world where actual truth is increasingly
elusive and ‘alternative’ truths become accepted, and where AI is starting to infiltrate so
many parts of our lives, influencing what we see and what we hear and what we read.
What You Don’t Know is well plotted, with all the various strands pulling tightly to a
tense and ultimately satisfying conclusion. The only thing that gave me pause was
the way Tess was able to handle the number of emotional punches that landed on her: I
would have been a puddle on the floor after the first one hit! But she keeps on getting
back up, blinking a little, then moving on to the next struggle. In Tess, Sandi Wallace has created the sort of resilient,
resourceful woman that we would all want to be.
Publisher’s blurb
Home on a secluded island should be safe… but isn’t.
Tess and Joe are living the dream on Wyeebo Island. She writes children’s mystery books and loves having her husband home on weekends. He has it all, a travelling job he excels in and a wife he adores.
But how well do they really know who they’re married to?
A prowler in Tess’s neighbourhood triggers trauma over her best friend’s unsolved death – and dread of history repeating. Tess does odd things she can’t remember, and Joe acts cagey. They each have secrets that converge with the abduction of a young local woman.
Who can they trust when they don’t trust each other, or themselves? With nobody and nowhere safe, can Tess stop what she doesn’t understand… or will somebody else die because of her?