What if one moment – one split second – changed everything?
When a firearms officer shoots a suspect dead and wounds another, who later dies in hospital, the official line is that the sun was in her eyes. Her body cam failed.
Known only as Officer X, her anonymity is meant to protect her – until a judge releases her name and a media storm erupts. Detective Superintendent Jack Dylan and DI Charley Mann are called in to determine whether it was a justifiable use of force – or something darker. And when it’s revealed that Officer X knew the victim, and her brother died of a drug overdose linked to the same woman, the case becomes charged with personal and political tension.
As pressure mounts, a vulnerable witness dies and a lost phone surfaces with a photograph and a message that could unravel everything – and reveal the truth about what happened that day.
Split Second brings Dylan and Mann together for the first time, in an investigation that will test their instincts, their loyalties and the limits of justice itself, as both detectives must decide how far they’ll go – and what they’re willing to sacrifice – to uncover the truth.
Former Head of CID Bob Bridgestock is now an international best-selling author, along with his wife Carol, who also worked for West Yorkshire Police. The couple, who write under the pen name of R.C. Bridgestock, were voted the eight best crime writers of all me by WHSmith Readers.
The writing duo created the character DI Jack Dylan, a detective from Harrowfield, with nine books in the Dylan series. In 2020, they launched a new series featuring a strong Yorkshire female, Detective Inspector Charley Mann. The couple were the storyline consultants/police procedural on BAFTA winning BBC1 police drama Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey and The Beast Must Die, as well as other police dramas.
My thoughts: I can’t imagine having to make the split second decision the story revolves around, knowing you might be about to end someone’s life, but the officer in this case does make that decision and then everything changes.
The decision is made to charge the officer with murder – because she has a link to one of the deceased pair of criminals, and it looks a bit convenient that she was the one who took the shot. But things are a lot more complicated than that.
As the case progresses, as the barristers present their versions of events, hoping to sway the jury, we spend time with Officer X, her nerves and her fears. It’s intense and the confines of the dock add to the feeling of pressure building. Juries can be hard to predict and if one barrister is more persuasive than the other, that could be all it takes.
There’s a couple of killer twists and a few things not followed up by either the police or the lawyers that leave unanswered questions and a nagging suspicion of something else going on. It’s very clever and subtle.
I really enjoyed this, it’s got excellent plotting, paced out beautifully, and interesting characters, I wanted to know more about so many of them. A really good read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 