This reader, at least, was pleased to go along with the journey even when things got a bit preposterous.

DCI John Marvel has been banished into the wild backwaters of Taunton Police after transgressions committed in the London Met. What bothers me is that the world is going nuts and there are tons of relevant books with urgent narrative voices and interesting aesthetic concepts tackling all kinds of important issues, and this novel is what the Booker wants to highlight? When the list was first announced, I was excited by the fact that there was some variety, that we weren’t seeing the same names that are nominated year after year. It’s a lose-lose, for both thriller and prize list readers to encounter Snap as a Booker nominee- that connection doesn’t seem like much of a compliment either to the longlist or to Snap, which will probably face harsher reviews because readers are expecting more from list nominees than the average thriller. Pregnant Eileen Bright leaves her three children in stifling heat - Jack, Joy and baby Merry - in a broken down car to phone for help, only she doesn't come back.The author and publisher apparently felt confident enough not to resort to the ubiquitous blurb "With a twist you'll never see coming! Some Italian dialects are impossible for me, but then I’d say I’m more ‘proficient’ than ‘fluent’ so I was just curious if it was challenging for you even as a fluent English speaker. Jack doesn't want his sisters to be taken in to care and decides to take care of them by burglarizing vacant homes and selling stolen items to a friend. He is wanted as a burglar, and despite efforts to direct the police toward the evidence he feels he has discovered, that doesn’t work out.

Three different story lines here, that are all related to each other, keep the pace quick, the story interesting.

His mum says to him: ‘You’re in charge, Jack,’ as she walks away from the car, and three years later he’s still in charge, trying to keep all the balls in the air, everybody alive, hidden from the authorities, in this terrible house, which is now full of newspapers which his sister collects obsessively to try and find clues about his mother’s death. I have been reading quite a few classics and the crisp modern style, the unexpected facets in the characters of the people in the story, it just grabbed me, curious, and mysterious, and sad and yet hopeful. The sensitivity in how this loss was described added to the authenticity and sets it apart from other thrillers. Dark Side and Finders Keepers are fine, but if I’d carried on going down that path I would have become very disillusioned, so that’s why I made a conscious decision to do something very different with my fourth book, Rubbernecker.

The author really had a knack for creating vibrant and evocative settings and realistic, passionate and memorable characters that leaped off the page. And just like so many killers in crime novels, this one uses a murder weapon that is unique and easily traceable – and the case is ultimately solved using information that was available to the police at the time of the murder. It’s undoubtedly pacey and gripping, with a fantastic concept: a woman leaves her children in her broken-down car to go get help, and she’s found murdered a week later. The mystery becomes how will Jack and the police figure out a way to tie the suspected killer to the actual murder.

This story drew me in immediately and after I figured out that it was in fact, not a “whodunnit” story, relaxed and enjoyed the ride.

And I’m frustrated that the Booker wasted an opportunity to expand literary readers’ horizons on this rather pointless and ill-constructed novel. A small difference for me was that I didn’t notice the exclamation points as much as the Italics- somehow my brain can skip over extreme punctuation but never the annoying overly-emphatic tone that I associate with Italics. I liked the setting as well; for some reason crime novels set in small town England have a vibe that really works for me and this was no exception.The courageous and brave Jack holds his family together against all the odds, driven by a fury and determination to see justice for his beloved mother. As you know from the blurb for the book, three young children are left alone on the side of the road way while their mother goes to find gas, or help, she gets neither, she is never coming back. Jack though, has had to grow up much quicker than seems fair, but he has a good head on his shoulder, and eventually things will come to a head. His efforts to take on the responsibility of holding the family together led him to become a young burglar.