The Good Teacher by Rachel Sargeant @RachelSargeant3 @KillerReads #review #blogtour

Today it is my absolute pleasure to be taking part in the blog tour for the latest thriller from Rachel Sargeant and Killer Reads, The Good Teacher. My thanks go to the author for inviting me to join the tour and to publisher, Killer Reads, for providing an advance copy for review. Here is what it’s all about:

About the Book

Some people deserve to be taught a lesson…
A gripping thriller with a shocking twist, from the Top Ten Kindle bestselling author of The Perfect Neighbours. This riveting story about a murdered teacher is perfect for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR.
Even the good have to die.
A beloved teacher is murdered and left in a ditch beside a country lane. His wife is found beaten and gagged in their suburban home.
Even the best schools have secrets.
New detective Pippa Adams learns that the teacher ran a homework club for vulnerable pupils. But what did he really teach them?
Even the perfect family has something to hide.
When Pippa scratches the surface of the school community, she meets families who’ve learned a shattering lesson. And finally uncovers the good teacher’s darkest secrets…
Previously published as LONG TIME WAITING, now fully updated.

My Thoughts

I love a good thriller with a touch of mystery and when I was told that the story is loosely based around a town not far from me too, I couldn’t wait to read it. And having read and loved the previous book, The Perfect Neighbours, I was keen to see whether this second book could match it. Which it did. And then some.

The Good Teacher opens in truly dramatic fashion with one of the central characters, Gaby, chained to a chair as a reader, not having a clue why. You feel the tension rising as the chapter progresses, Gaby’s plight uncertain and with no end in sight. And yet interlaced amongst Gaby’s story is the seemingly incongruous tale of Reg, a man peddling his way towards a sneaky cooked breakfast, an act which will lead to the most grim discovery of his life …

This book is a thrilling and suspenseful who-dunnit with a cracking central character that I grew to like very quickly. Pippa Adams is fun, a little quirky maybe, but suffering very much from new girl syndrome, finding herself the butt of the jokes amongst her fellow Detectives for her love of puzzles and random Agatha Christie references. I really did like Pippa and warmed to her almost immediately as I think everyone can recognise a little bit of themselves in Pippa. She is intelligent and ultra keen, but possesses a kind of off-kilter intuition which leaves her open to ideas which may pass her colleagues by. She is sympathetic too, but questions everything she sees, challenging her colleagues in an entirely unassuming way. Her colleagues are a little harder to grow to like, although I did find myself developing a bit of a soft spot for DS Mike Matthews too. He was a little abrupt and dismissive of Pippa to begin with, but stepped up to the plate when it really mattered.

There are other elements to this story which I can’t really go into without giving too much away. However what I can say is that the main victim, Gaby’s husband, is a teacher, and this brings him into contact with a whole host of people who may have the opportunity to hurt him. The main that the police need to solve is why. I love the way in which the author slowly feeds the clews into the story, giving the reader plenty of suspects and draws together the separate threads of story until they form a very clear and quite stark picture. There is plenty of emotion in this book, and the author tackles some meaty subjects with a keen observation, and a sensitive manner, making it feel believable.

This is a great police based thriller with a good bit of humour, engaging characters as well as a serious subject at its heart. It does feel more cozy crime than dark thriller, Pippa exhibiting quite a few of the traits of some of her favourite deductive literary heroes, but I really enjoyed that angle to be fair. A change of pace to some of the other books I normally read, but it still seemed to simply fly by. Perhaps because it had me smiling just as much as it challenged by little grey cells. There are so many secrets for the police, and us as readers to uncover, that it will keep you hooked from start to finish.

If you would like a copy of the book for yourself you can find it now at the following retailers:

Amazon UK | Amazon US | Kobo

About the Author

Rachel Sargeant is the author of Kindle Top Ten bestseller The Perfect Neighbours. She is a previous winner of Writing Magazine’s Crime Short Story competition and has beenplaced or shortlisted in various competitions, including the Bristol ShortStory Prize. Her stories have appeared in MyWeekly and the Accent Press Saucy Shorts series. Rachel grew up inLincolnshire, spent several years living in Germany and now lives inGloucestershire with her husband and children.

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