I Let You Go (Mackintosh)

I Let You Go 
Clare Mackintosh, 2014 (U.S., 2016)
Berkeley Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101987506


Summary
On a rainy afternoon, a mother's life is shattered as her son slips from her grip and runs into the street...
 
I Let You Go follows Jenna Gray as she moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past.
 
At the same time, the novel tracks the pair of Bristol police investigators trying to get to the bottom of this hit-and-run. As they chase down one hopeless lead after another, they find themselves as drawn to each other as they are to the frustrating, twist-filled case before them.

Elizabeth Haynes, author of Into the Darkest Corner, says, "I read I Let You Go in two sittings; it made me cry (at least twice), made me gasp out loud (once), and above all made me wish I'd written it...a stellar achievement." (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1976-77
• Raised— Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Royal Holloway University, Surrey
• Awards—Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year; Cognac Prix du Polar Best
   International Novel
• Currently—lives in the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire, England


Clare Mackintosh, a former British policewoman, is the author of the thriller novels, I Let You Go (2014) and I See You (2017). The first book was a Richard & Judy book club pick, winner of Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award (beating J.K.Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith), and the Best International Novel at France's Cognac Festival Prix du Polar awards.

Education and career
After attending Aylesbury High School in Buckinghamshire, Mackintosh went to Royal Holloway University in Surrey, taking a degree in French and management. As part of her course work, she spent a year in Paris as a bilingual secretary. Upon graduation, however, she decided she wanted to enter police work. After training, she was transfered to Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds where she was promoted to town sergeant. Later, she became Thames Valley Police operations inspector for Oxfordshire. All told, Mackintosh spent 12 years in the police force

For a number of years, Mackintosh had been writing her own blog, and in 2011 she left police work to try her hand at writing full-time. She took on feature articles as a free-lancer, became a columnist for Cotswold Life, and eventually turned to fiction. After writing what she calls "a fairly mediocre chick-lit novel"—clever enough to gain her an agent but not a publisher—she realized she needed to write on a subject she knew something about: a hit-and-run accident in Oxfordshire that took the life of a young child. Some years later, Mackintosh went through her own devastating loss as a mother. Those two tragedies led her to write I Let You Go.

Personal
In 2006, Clare and her husband Rob Mackintosh became the parents of twin boys, delivered prematurely. Their son Alex contracted meningitis and died when he was a few weeks old. When her surviving son was 15 months old, Mackintosh gave birth to a second set of twins.

Mackintosh is founder and director of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival and has become patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity supporting the John Radcliffe Hospital's work with families facing difficult pregnancies. (Adapted from Wikipedia and other online sources, including Writing Magazine. Retrieved 1/17/2017.)

Book Reviews
The big plot twist in Clare Mackintosh’s first novel, I Let You Go, is genuinely shocking. The jolts that follow, right up until the last page, are pretty good too...[a] cunning psychological thriller.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
 

An intense psychological thriller…[that] revels in surprises and twists…Outstanding.
Associated Press


Thrilling…a tense psychological thriller.
Real Simple
 

[An] accomplished debut.... Mackintosh easily shifts points of view and keeps readers on their toes, slowly upping the suspense, so that when she does reveal her twists they—mostly—work.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [A] complex tale out of seemingly straightforward circumstances.... This UK best seller is a wonderfully layered thriller that skillfully builds from that one tragic event.... Highly recommended.  —Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Mackintosh, a former U.K. deputy inspector, delivers an accurate portrayal of a typical police investigation.... [E]xcellent writing...memorable characters and a compelling portrayal of the eccentricities of small-town life....the kind of book that sticks in the reader's mind well after the final sentence.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. How does the title, I Let You Go, link to the themes in the novel?

2. The author of I Let You Go is a former police officer. Do you think this is evident in the storytelling?

3. How does the author pull the wool over the reader’s eyes in preparation for the first major twist? How did you feel when you reached it?

4. Discuss the relationship between Ray and Kate.

5. Some of the scenes in I Let You Go present a high level of violence. Are these sections hard to read? Are they necessary for the story? Why did the author include them?

6. The ending is intentionally ambiguous: what do you think happened at the end of the story, and do you think it was the right ending? How would you have resolved the story?

7. What does the future hold for Jenna?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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