To Tell The Truth
"..the way reporters gain stories and their relationship with the police and other entities is fascinating..."
Synopsis:
A three-year-old British girl is taken from a Spanish beach while on holiday with her parents. Nobody heard a sound. Nobody saw a thing. Or so they claim. Meanwhile, on the nearby Costa del Sol, Rosie Gilmour is enjoying a well-deserved vacation: one that is cut short when the abduction story breaks and she's sent to cover it.
Rosie's instincts tell her something's wrong. Such a crime, committed in broad daylight, must surely have its witnesses. Moreover, the girl's mother's story just doesn't add up. When Rosie is approached by an illegal sex worker with information about the abduction, she knows these instincts are correct.
Key information about the crime is being withheld from the authorities. The reason: corrupt politicians and vicious human trafficking gangs - enemies one would think twice about making. But thinking twice is not in Rosie Gilmour's DNA, especially when a young child's life is at stake. And, as Rosie closes in on the truth, she realises the penalty for missing this particular deadline is just that, death.
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Review:
'To Tell The Truth' is Anna Smith's second novel about reporter Rosie Gilmour, following on from the events of 'The Dead Won't Sleep', although it is not necessary to have read the first. It is as gritty, suspenseful and real as you would expect from a Glaswegian ex-reporter and in my opinion surpasses 'The Dead Won't Sleep', which I really enjoyed. Taking the reader from Spain to Glasgow to Morocco and back, through harrowing experiences that pull no punches, Anna's background gives an additional edge to the dramatisation that feels so real, I am not convinced similar real life circumstances did not happen that way but never get published. The insight into how newspapers work, the way reporters gain stories and their relationship with the police and other entities is fascinating in itself, but the story is a complete page turner that grips you as the seedy depths of human trafficking and networks unravel.