Seven Days by Robert Rutherford

Blog tour: 22 to 28 April 2024

Synopsis

Your father is on death row. You have seven days to save him. But do you want to?
Alice knows her father is guilty of many things.
He’s guilty of abandoning her.
He’s guilty of being unfaithful to her mother.
But is he guilty of murder?

Now on Death Row, he has seven days to live.
Some people want him released.
Others will kill to keep him just where he is.
Alice has only one chance to save him. But should she?

My review

There are 13 years in age between Alice Logan and her sister, Fiona Sharp, and the women haven’t always had the easiest of relationships since their parents split up. Alice was the one who told their mum that their dad, Jim, was having an affair with a woman called Mariella Serrano and Fiona has always blamed her sister for splitting up the family and her parents’ 19-year marriage.

When, out of the blue, Fiona reveals to Alice that she’s heard from Mariella and their estranged father is on death row in Raiford in Florida and due to be executed by lethal injection in seven days’ time, both women are shocked and confused, especially as they haven’t been in touch with their dad for over 14 years.

Jim Sharp was accused and found guilty of the murder of a small-time drug dealer called Manny Castillo. The evidence against him sounds conclusive but Jim has spent the last 11 years maintaining his innocence and appealing.

Fiona pleads with her sister to help investigate the case and see if there’s any way that their father can be saved. Alice was a criminal attorney in New York but returned to their hometown of Whitley Bay after their mum had a stroke four years ago and now works as a lawyer for a law firm.

Reluctantly, Alice agrees to help and what follows is a whirlwind week as she races from the North East of England to Paris to New York to Florida! It’s a race against time as Alice has just seven days to try and find something to help her father and save him from death row. She’s tenacious and brave, putting herself in dangerous situations, asking probing questions of various people and using her contacts in the UK and US to try and figure out what’s been going on.

It’s a gripping, fast-paced, exciting and cleverly plotted thriller that would make a great TV series or film! There were lots of twists and turns, and I was never sure who to trust and was suspicious of everyone. The case took a frightening turn and things escalated in dramatic fashion.

There were some shocking revelations and some intense and terrifying scenes in which I was scared for all of the characters involved! I was holding my breath at times. Such an entertaining read!

Seven Days is compulsive and tense reading and the short chapters made me want to read just one more! I raced through it in a couple of days and didn’t want to put this brilliant book down! I’m looking forward to the next book from the author and will definitely be checking out his Porter and Styles series, written as Robert Scragg.

Buy the book

Seven Days by Robert Rutherford can be purchased from Amazon on Kindle and in hardback, and as an eBook from Kobo and iBooks. See also Ethical Book Search.

About the author

Robert Rutherford had a random mix of jobs before taking the dive into crime writing; he’s been a bookseller, pizza deliverer, karate instructor, football coach and HR manager. He lives on the North-East coast with his wife, children and overly needy dog, and is a founding member of the Northern Crime Syndicate crime-writers group.

Robert’s work has also seen him win the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction in 2021, as well as being shortlisted for a CWA Dagger in 2021 and 2022, and longlisted in 2024.

He also writes as Robert Scragg, with What Falls Between the Cracks, the first in his Porter and Styles series, being chosen as a New Writing North pick in the 2019 Read Regional books of the year.

Twitter: @rutherfordbooks
Facebook: @robertscragg
Instagram: @robertrutherfordwrites

Blog tour

Thanks very much to Alainna Georgiou at Hodder & Stoughton for my hardback copy of Seven Days and for my place on the blog tour.

See the banner below for more stops on the #blogtour.