One minute, a young mother is walking home with her five-year-old son, Jacob. The next, he's dead, hit by a car; the driver takes off without stopping.
Jenna is shattered by the car accident. She leaves her house one day with no destination in mind, wanting only to get lost. She ends up in a remote Welsh seaside town, where she rents a rundown cottage and starts rebuilding her life.
Detective Inspector Ray Stevens and his junior officer, Detective Constable Kate Evans, catch the case but months pass with no leads. Though ordered by the chief constable to close the case, Kate keeps working on it on her own time, and eventually convinces Ray to review the old files, too. They finally get a solid clue about the guilty driver's identity. What happens next upends Jenna's life, for nothing is as it appears, and the cops find they're far from closing the case.
It's hard to believe I Let You Go is Mackintosh's debut novel because it's so assured. The author doesn't just conjure up memorable characters and gripping plots; her settings ring true. Mackintosh is also very good at keeping readers ensnared in suspense. The most impressive feat she pulls off is a bombshell--readers who say they saw it coming are most likely fibbing. The revelation is so good, readers might want to reread I Let You Go to see how it changes their perceptions--even the title takes on different interpretations--and whether or not the twist holds up. It does. This kind of sharp, cunning writing makes one eagerly look forward to Mackintosh's next novel. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd