From the outset Bauer had me hooked with the description of the tension in the broken-down car and the long-awaited return of the childrens' mother. I immediately felt a bond and sympathy with the main character that increased throughout the book, despite my initial concern that he 'turned bad' - not all children become wrongdoers because of an early childhood trauma and yet this seems to be a little overworked in many books at the moment. I was also a bit concerned about the huge coincidence bringing together victim and perpetrator but Bauer provides enough links and reasoning for me to accept and ultimately thoroughly enjoy the plot and the satisfying ending. I would definitely recommend this to fans of detective stories and also to general fiction readers.

Sometimes, being a parent has no impact on my reading whatsoever.

Sometimes it changes everything.

This book begins with a car breaking down on the motorway. Children left alone inside it while mum goes to find the emergency phone on the hard shoulder. Mum never comes back...

Even though it's not a movie and I wasn't technically 'seeing' anything, I had to look away from the pages every so often just to catch my breath thanks to the tension (made worse by imagining my own children there) during this intro.

The book skips a few years ahead afterwards. I don't want to reveal too much of the spoilery plot, but there are a few interesting strands - what's become of the young family that lost their mum, and what the mystery assailant is doing now. Can son Jack solve the murder that the police couldn't close?

I'm wasn't convinced that the police were always acting plausibly (but hey what do I know), and some of them were drawn with rather broad brushstrokes. You don't get concrete answers to every single question that might come up during the read.

But Jack and his sisters are fascinating and prevent this book from having the 'same old, same old' feel that so many crime/suspense books have. I would read this author again.

I was over the moon when netgalley accepted my request for this book, it sounded enticing, full of twists and a crime plot, I always read through reviews before starting a book out of curiosity to see what other readers thoughts and opinions are, this one seemed to be very well enjoyed. When I started the first chapter I was hooked of the bat, we meet jack and his two younger sisters joy and merry who are sat in their sweltering hot car which has broken down, their pregnant mother decides to go and look for a pay phone to call for help, however jack starts to worry as she has been gone for a long time and his sisters are becoming restless in which they decide to go and look for their mother and meet her at the phone box, they set of on the busy road and eventually come across the pay phone hanging of its hook but no sign of their mum... a few days later she is devastatingly found murdered. My heart was in my mouth I'm a mother of three and the thought of anything happening to me and not watching my children grow is the stuff of nightmares. I immediately wanted to read on to find out what had happened to jacks mother why would anyone kill a pregnant mother? Fast forward a few years and jack is fourteen, he and his two sisters are abandoned in their house after their father left so it's now up to jack to take care of his sisters and has started breaking into homes to make ends meet. What put me of was I found it a bit unrealistic, three children who had previously been at school and suddenly withdrew from school would surely be noticed that they are living alone without an adult especially neighbours would notice especially when merry who is only six tells her neighbours they're alone, what about when they're inspected by home school inspectors or if they need a doctors appointment etc? . I also found the jumping to other characters and their story lines a bit confusing, their was Catherine, Louis and a detective. My heart was set on solely following jacks story and I found the other characters story lines distracting, I'm so disappointed after reading great reviews I was really looking forward to starting this but sadly is wasn't for me.

This is a very well crafted crime thriller that had me hooked from the first page. I loved all of the different stories and how they merged together within the finale. 4 stars as I felt the pace dulled in the middle, however would still recommend.

Full of coincidences but believable characters and very well written. Many twist and turns that I didn't expect. I just can't believe that nobody would have stopped for 3 small children wandering along the motorway or that nobody got involved when there was a fire at the house. Surely the first instinct would be to call the fire brigade and check on the family afterwards. Thats the only bit that isn't believable in my eyes.

Jack, Joy and Merry await their mum coming back for after phoning for help when their car breaks down. It's a sweltering hot day in the summer of '98. They wait, and wait, and wait. Until they realise she's not coming back. Their father is distraught and disappears leaving Jack to be in charge. Jack turns to burglary to make ends meet, helping himself to electrical goods, food and the occasional sleep in a cozy bed where he pretends he's got a normal life. One day on a burglary job Jack sees the knife that killed his mother and leaves it beside the bed of Catherine, a young pregnant woman along with a note.. DCI John Marvel is drafted in to find "goldilocks" and stumbles upon new evidence on the murder of Jack, Joy and Merry's mum. A great read would recomment.

Three different stories that at first seem unrelated merge together for a gripping finale. The consequences of one crime having vast ramifications on more than one family. This really makes you think about how easy it is to turn to crime when you have no one else to turn to . Her characters are so well written that you even like the rogues , and the chief himself isn’t even afraid to turn a blind eye if it means getting a result.

Could not put it down ! it has been a long time since a book of this genre has kept me up reading at night but this one nailed it ! loved the characters Jack and the girls Joy and Merry and the atmosphere at the beginning that stifling hot car on the motorway, the heat bouncing off the tarmac, the cars whizzing past - took my breath away ! The book is relatively complex with lots of interlinks that do tie together - Reynolds mother living next door for instance is a hoot !

For me the main thing that kept me gripped was the children - each showing their grief at the loss of their mother in different ways the desperation of young Jack to keep his family together and the rage that produces "Goldilocks" poor little Joy collecting all those newspapers and Merry the baby claiming to remember Mummy when everyone thinks she was too young to remember - or was she ?????

Its not a long book but it is very well written and I recommend it to you wholeheartedly

Expected this book to be good and I wasn’t disappointed. Excellent plot and characters that worked well with the script. Jack and his sisters are very much on their own in this fantastic story, Jack is definitely my hero in this gripping twisting turning mystery, that has heart and a touch of humour. I would definitely recommend this book. 10 out of 10

After their car breaks down, Jack and his two younger siblings wait for their mother to come back from making an emergency phone call. Only she isn't coming back. Three years later their family has all but fallen apart, a pregnant woman makes an unwelcome discovery in her home, and a spate of unusual burglaries are baffling the local police.

The book starts off at a slow pace and there were times during the first half that I mused about quitting, but I'm glad I didn't. The second half is much pacier and things that you didn't realise were connected start to come together. In fact the plot is very cleverly done, however I thought the final reveal about why Jack's mother disappeared was a little underwhelming - I was expecting something more but this is a minor quibble. If you like slow-burning crime fiction, then this is a must-read.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers, Random House UK/Transworld Publishers for the opportunity to review an ARC.

Belinda Bauer has done it again! An excellent thriller that moves along at a cracking pace, ‘Snap’ draws you in from the very first page and doesn’t let go until the final page has been turned. A fantastic 5 star read.

A book not to miss. Worth more than 5 stars. I loved every minute of it - has sadness, tension, humour, bungling police and lots of twists. Definitely one of the best books I have read. You are never quite certain where it is going - you think one thing but this is superseded by something in the next few pages. This book never drags or slows down. I particularly enjoyed the pages covering the decryption of the entries in the book crucial to the story. If you love a mystery full of twists then go for this.

A very well crafted thriller which feature Jack Bright as the main character. He is fourteen and mourning the loss his mother who was murdered three years previously. His father has left the family home and it is up to Jack to fend for himself and his two younger sisters. You can feels the weight of responsibility heaped on Jack’s shoulders and he keeps the family together by breaking into houses and fencing the items he steals.

Early on in the novel we are introduced to the other strand of the story when Jack breaks into the home of Catherine While. The two stories soon begin to come together.

My favourite characters in the novel were two of the police officers who are investigating the burglaries and get a lot of the best lines. There is an excellent plot and it is an entertaining and sometimes quite complex storyline. Recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from NetGalley and publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

This book took me by surprise - I thought it was going to be an ordinary thriller or police procedural drama but the characters were intriguing and not at all black and white. The plot slowly revealed connections between the characters and built up the relationships between the criminals and the detectives slowly and teasingly. There was a lot of humour in it too. I found it quirky and absorbing.

I've got really into this sort of genre over the past few months and I'll admit it was the blurb that had me really wanting to read this one.

A boy and 2 girls are left in a car at the side of a road, the mum has gone to call for help as they've broken down. The real problem. The mother doesn't return.

A murder seemingly unprovoked but will history repeat itself?

Three years later and learn that things have not improved for Jack and his sisters. After the stress of the events that unfolded their dad abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves and to do so Jack has turned to robbing houses but in the process he thinks he's found the weapon that murdered his mum.

What follows is almost a cat and mouse chase in two parts because whilst Jack is chasing someone who he believes killed his parent, the police are chasing him as the believe him to be the thief known as Goldilocks.

For me this was an ok novel.

And there are two reasons for that feeling. One because there wasn't enough mystery behind the cases. It was obvious quite early on the sort of road it would all lead down which took part of the thrill away from the story. Snap is well written and easy to read just not enough suspense for my liking.

My second reason which I think goes in hand with the first is that I didn't really connect with the characters, I had no real feelings for what was happening to them and this stopped the book from becoming what I'd like to call a page turner.

Over all the story was good but not great, I have read better from this genre.

What a brilliant book! I have never read anything from this author before so wasn't quite sure what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed it and read it in one go!
It was just heartbreaking at the beginning when Jack, Joy and Merry are all sitting in their broken door car on the hard shoulder of the motorway, waiting for their mother coming back. She has gone to find an emergency roadside phone and is away for so long that the kids decide to walk down the hard shoulder to find her. My heart was in my mouth at this point, these poor children on a seemingly endless, extremely dangerous, walk in the searing summer heat.
We find out that the mother isn't coming back and the book jumps forward a couple of years to find the children living together on their own, hiding from Social Services, determined not to be taken into care. Jack's way of taking responsibility for the family means they are living in squalor and you are just hoping for someone to come along and rescue them from this feral lifestyle. It is so sad, my heart broke for them all! But the book is not all heartbreak and sadness, there is a fair amount of humour, especially when the police get involved in investigating the unsolved disappearance of the mother. DCI Marvel and DS Reynolds are brilliantly written characters, they bounce off each other so well.
This is definitely one of my books of the year so far. It is hard to define, it is a mystery, a thriller, a whodunnit and a heartbreaking account of 3 children left to fend for themselves with a strong thread of black humour which really appealed to me. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, I absolutely loved it.

This is an excellent book. The story is based on Jack, whose mother was murdered, and how he and his sisters coped afterwards. There are tense scenes and moments of humour too. The detectives are all fully fledged characters with their own personalities. I have read other books by Belinda Bauer and this is possibly the best yet.

Story of Jack and his two sisters whose mother goes missing after the car they were in breaks down. Jack struggles to take care of his sisters. Lots of characters, including Catherine who is heavily pregnant and being menaced by an unknown person, Inspector Marvel, who has been recently relocated to Devon and is on the case and of course Jack who is trying to find out what really happened to his mother. Slow start, but gripping as the characters and story come together. Brilliant.

An imaginative story, drifting between 1998 and 2001! An intriguing plot leading to a satisfactory end to this story. A very good read that held my attention throughout.

This is the first book i have read by Belinda Bauer and certainly not my last. I found this book fast paced and very thought provoking. I was glued from page one and read this in one day. I would highly recommend this book.