The Promise

CASEY is being touted as an up-and-coming star in the genre and seems to have built up quite a following. I thought I would give The Promise a try, the story of young sisters Georgie and Marnie Parker, who are left to fight their own corner when their mother is jailed for a horrific crime.

While the premise sounds good, unfortunately I found this slow and rambling, and could feel no affinity or sympathy with any of the characters, even the two little girls, who don’t really take centre stage until midway through the book. It takes some time to grasp exactly where the story is going and some of the detail is too vivid and excruciating, even for me. I feel there are too many angles to the plot that have been put in to develop the background and environment in which the main characters live, but have little relevance to the meat of the story.

You only really get to the nitty gritty when the crime is committed, and after that there are plenty of signposts to what the eventual outcome will be. Having said that it wasn’t quite what I expected, the twist at the end being so far-fetched it was difficult to imagine how it could happen and whether it would be physically possible.

I don’t want to judge Casey too harshly on one book. I listened to this one on Audible and found that the narrator’s voice jarred badly with the subject matter and perhaps it was that which prevented me becoming deeply engrossed in the story. More likely, it is because many authors of UK gangland fiction believe they are giving the reading public what they want – and I guess the figures don’t lie.

I am beginning to feel like it’s groundhog day, though, the same characters cropping up again and again: Pitiful cliches of how people imagine bad boys should be. A bit more originality please.

Two stars