Actual rating 3.5 stars.

I always think the sign of a great thriller is if I have a good idea of how it’s going to go, and yet still can’t put it down - and that was certainly the case with this gripping and fast paced read!

Renowned surgeon Anna comes home one night to find her son gone, her home bugged and a man telling her that she must kill her patient, an MP, during their operation, or her son Zack will die. Nurse Margot is the only one who sees what happens, and ends up messed up in the kidnap plot because of it. And then there’s the detective, Rachel, who is the only one who thinks Anna is up to something, but whose team think she is focusing on the missing child because of her own tragedy. How does Anna get herself, and Zack, out of this situation?

This is definitely what you’d call a page turner - the pace and the three different narratives really keep you zooming through the chapters as the tension and danger ramps up! Whilst the plot felt familiar (and reminded me again to never be the best at anything 🤣), it was executed brilliantly, and almost reminded me of an episode of 24 with the race to get Zack back and having to break some rules to save a life!

Whilst I never warmed to Anna, who comes across as a serious cold fish, I could totally imagine myself doing the same things in her position - those mother bear instincts are pretty relatable! But it was Rachel who I really felt for and have to admit I was rooting for - her backstory was really emotional! Definitely an interesting trio of female narrators here.

I really enjoyed this one and can see why there’s such a buzz about it - plus bonus point to the author for saving the dog 🤣🤣

I have both read and listened to this book and both versions are absolutely incredible. This is a tense rollercoaster ride of a read. Keeping you absolutely hooked from start to finish. As the characters are narrated you feel the tension mount more and more as you listen.

The story is told from the points of view of three women. Dr Anna Jones a very well respected heart surgeon, Margot a nurse assisting Anna in theatre, and Inspector Rachel Conaty who is investigating a murder.

Each of these women show very strong character traits each of them determined to do things their way.

Dr Anna Jones comes home to find strange men in her house, she is told to sit down when she asks where her son Zachary is, her neighbour normally picks him up from school for her, the men tell her they have her son, and she has to do something for them which will ensure she gets her son back alive, if she fails to do what they ask he will die. Anna has to kill a VIP patient and get away with it. What would you do save the patient or save your son?
Margot is broke, she is stealing money and items from her colleagues and patients she is in debt and being threatened. She is assisting in theatre on the surgery on the VIP patient. Standing very close to Dr Anna.
Detective Conaty is called to a murder scene where a woman’s body has been found dumped in a well, she has been shot in the head, all her teeth removed and her fingertips all removed. But it’s not long before the identity is found and she lives next door to Anna!

This is one tense, gripping, rollercoaster read or listen which will have you hooked from start to finish guaranteed. The tension builds from the opening scenes, to the closing pages. If you love audiobooks and you live a dilemma and crime then definitely listen to this.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Simon and Schuster audio UK for the audio of this book in exchange for an honest, fair and unbiased review.

As with all hyped books I was a little apprehensive when first starting this book, I was expecting big things and didn’t know if it would live up to it.

Well, half way through it I was hooked! My heart was racing and I really didn’t want to put the book down. Jack’s writing was so good that I had numerous suspicions, some proving right and some nowhere near but when a book gets you doubting everyone you know it’s good! Despite all of these theories though I still couldn’t predict how the book was going to finish and felt like I needed to discuss things with other readers.

The book kept me on the edge throughout and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more books by Jack in the future.

The blurb for this book on Amazon doesn’t give much away because I think this is a hard novel to review without giving a spoiler. The simple premise is that Dr Anna Jones, a very skilled and experienced surgeon, who has found her niche at fictional Redwood Hospital, arrives home one day and discovers a number of men, probably of Eastern European origin, in her house. They are installing surveillance equipment and they have advised her that they are holding her son hostage and have also killed his childminder, her neighbour.

What do they want? They want her to kill the patient on whom she will be operating over the weekend, a top secret assignment, as he is a high profile politician and potential future leader of the Labour party – Prime Minister one day, perhaps. If she acquiesces, she will see the safe return of her son.

Phew, that is a powerful opener. Of course, the reader doesn’t know how Dr Jones will respond. Will she kill her patient? Does she even have what it takes to make the decision? How will she marry her lioness care of her son with her moral compass?

She is being trailed by investigative duo Conaty and Ryan who have a whiff that her child has somehow gone missing, atthough she hotly denies it whilst she assesses what to do; Conaty certainly is following her instincts. Her superior, however, is not buying her surmised version of events. The child is supposed to be on holiday with his uncle in the West Country but even the uncle is being evasive and side-stepping the police’s demands for an interview.

Dr Jones is an efficient woman, she likes to be in control – a valuable skill in the operating theatre. But she is a woman who has a foible, however. She suffers from trichotillomania, compulsive plucking of hair, so she pulls and pulls to relieve stress and she is in fact without eyelashes because of her affliction. She is therefore a woman who is not all she seems. She is also in the midst of a break up with her husband, so there is a lot going on for her long before this particular trauma is foisted upon her. What an utter and scary mess all round.

There is a lot of surgical detail.. and blood. It all feels authentic and the tension is kept at a good constant. It is set over approximately one week in early Spring 2019 and because the story progresses almost hour by hour, there is a good sense of bristling pressure on the main character. I listened to this as an audiobook and found it a gripping listen.

Setting is not strong.

A Great listen and a good story
Dr Anna Jones faces a moral dilemma and with her son at risk it seems she has no option but to comply with the demands being made of her

This book really gripped me and I enjoyed the whole story line

It’s the first book I have listened to by Jack Jordan but it certainly will not be the last. as I enjoy a good thriller

My only negative and it could actually be down to my download but the narrator seemed very fast and I had to go back to a couple of bits I obviously missed.

Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me the opportunity to listen and review this book

This is an excellent book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was surprised at how good it was - I absolutely loved it, and it kept me hooked throughout.

The three audiobook narrators were amazing, and they played the parts of Anna the surgeon, Margo the nurse and Rachel the detective superbly. Anna is told to kill an MP while she is performing heart surgery on him. If she does this, she will get her son back from the kidnappers who took him. Margo sees Anna botching up the operation, but will she tell on her? Rachel is the one who is working on the case - will she be able to solve it?

The whole book was fantastic, fast paced, emotional and thrilling, and I raced through it, loving every moment. It is one of the best books I have read this year and I highly recommend it!

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Heart-stopping, pulse pounding, nerve wracking!

Do No Harm was an exceptional medical thriller. My first book by Jack Jordan – he is now an auto-buy author for me!

Thanks Simon & Schuster Audio UK and NetGalley for the ALC!

A skilled surgeon committing murder? Thriller fans, you don’t want to miss this!

I recommend going in blind, so skipping the synopsis.

Review –

The narrative follows the POVs of Dr. Anna Jones – the reputed heart surgeon, Margot – the nurse and Rachel – the detective. I loved that the audio had different voices - Lucy Paterson, Sarah Feathers and Jane Collingwood, for the three women and this made following the three of them very easy.

The narrators brought in a unique quality for each of these characters and I thought they perfectly matched their personalities, that I came to visualize . Their pacing was just right to build up the tension – slowly to begin with and unrelentingly intense towards the end.

The plot construction is water-tight. Jordan does a brilliant job of using a surgeon and the circumstances of her life and the people around her, in his storyline – building everything else around this.

I could really feel Anna’s impossible conundrum. Torn between her rightful duties of saving lives as a doctor and yet at the same time, wanting to protect your child at any cost as a doting mother – I was amazed by her quick thinking, shrewdness, the ability to perform under immense pressure and when unthinkable demands are forced on her.

Margot and Rachel bring their own backgrounds and traits into the plot, getting intertwined with Anna’s worsening situation. I really enjoyed how they upped the ante in terms of the intensity of it.

One more thing, I appreciated was that the medical jargon and descriptions were simple enough for layman understanding, rather than being overwhelming.

Towards the end, Anna seems to be pulled in every possible direction and how she manages to stay functional and in one piece, with every twist and turn, is something you need to experience with the book.

Audio was the choicest format for this book. I can’t endorse it enough!

Beware! Once you start this book, you can’t stop. It’s compelling, engrossing and all-consuming with your sheer need to find out more.

Oh this is simply the perfect material for a movie/TV series.

This was an excellent audiobook, it was one of those you cannot wait to listen to the next instalment. I'm not too fond of stories that are farfetched unless that is how they have been advertised, but this one made the unbelievable sound believable. A great skill in my mind. I enjoyed all the characters, while there were different voices doing each character they sounded very similar. I would recommend this book.

5 Word Review: Family, trust, power, love, secrets.

Not going to lie, when I first saw the cover I thought I'd read this book before. It's a very same-y cover, exceedingly similar to other books in the genre, it doesn't stand out. It was only when I read the blurb I realised that no, I hadn't read this book. And it's such a shame that I could have missed it because of the cover, because Do No Harm was a great read.

Anna is the first character we meet, and oh my goodness. My perception of her between the first page and the last page couldn't have been more different. I loved her assurance and the sense of power she exuded. She's whip smart, so clever it's scary.

Margo was messy, so messy. I'm still not sure how her life ended up as it did, how she ended up so desperate, but she tugged at my heart strings.

Rachel has the instinct for her job, I loved how she kept pushing and she knew that something wasn't right. Someone was dancing rings around her and she knew it but couldn't quite figure out how to stop it.

This story starts tense, and stays tense. It is incredibly fast paced and difficult to put down. If I had been reading this instead of listening I'm sure it would have been done in a single sitting. At ten hours I had to split it across my commutes, and I hated having to stop.

This is a thriller, of course there's a twist. But this one? I really didn't see it coming, and it changes completely how I perceived one of the characters.

In terms of performance, I thought the cast did an excellent job. There are three performers for this story, Lucy Paterson, Sarah Feathers, Jane Collingwood. They all brought a little something different to the story, and brought their characters to life in unique ways - it was always easy to tell the difference between which character was telling the story.

I will absolutely read more by this author. I loved the surprising complexity of the story, and how it dug deeper into the emotions and motivations of the characters. I particularly liked the twist.

Anna is a surgeon, she comes home after work one days to find strange men in it. They have killed her neighbour, kidnapped her son and are installing cameras all over her house.
To have her son back Anna must kill an mp she if due to operate on soon.

This audiobook had me hooked right from the start. It is a rollercoaster of emotions and twists and turns.

The narrators do a great job, narrating the story in the perspectives of Anna, Margo (a nurse that works with Anna) and Rachel (the detective tasked to solve the murder of Anna’s neighbour).

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Audio UK for letting me review this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Oh wow! What an amazing concept for a book! A rollercoaster of a book that grabs you by the throat from the very beginning with a shocking choice and vivid panic, which is almost palpable. Bravo Jack!

There was a lot that I enjoyed about this book. I found the characters to be interesting, if not remotely likeable, It took a lot of turns that took me by surprise, and the ending was a shock as well. It was tense and gripping.

I didn't mind the narration of Rachel and Margot's sections, but some of the Anna parts really, really grated on my nerves, specifically any section where she was in distress and put on a crying voice, or when she put on Zach's sad little boy voice, or actually when she was doing the extremely questionable generic eastern European man accents - to the point that I ditched the audiobook completely, switched to the text version, and enjoyed the story much more. A lot of that is personal taste, since I generally prefer a narrator to simply read the story without adopting extreme accents or acting it out too much.

Do No Harm is a mystery thriller, and the first book I’ve read by this author. It follows a heart surgeon Anna whose son has been kidnapped. The kidnappers have demanded that if she wants to get her son back alive she must kill a , a high profile MP, during an operation. The big question is what will Anna do and how far will she go to save her son.

This is a well written book that will have you turning pages to find out what Anna will do so save her son. The story is told through three different female perspectives. Anna the surgeon, Margot a scrub nurse that works with Anna and Rachel A detective who is investigating a murder that is linked to the kidnapping.

There is a good balance of likeable and unlikeable characters that make the book more interesting. Each character is well drawn and crafted however, I will admit that the ones I liked and felt sorry for at the beginning soon became unlikeable as the story progresses. I won’t say which but am sure you’ll definitely find out.
Now although I really enjoyed this book I did get that Deja vu feeling. I throughout the book I kept getting the feeling that I’ve read a similar plot line before. It may just be my mind playing tricks. But, never the less still a great read.

I was lucky enough to receive the audiobook and I really enjoyed it. The three narrators Lucy Paterson, Sarah Feathers and Jane Collingwood have done a great job with bringing the story and characters to life. At the start of the audiobook there is an instrumental introduction, and although it adds atmosphere I’m so glad it isn’t played at the beginning of each chapter as it can get very distracting.

Overall a very gripping mystery thriller that is definitely worth giving a read!! I can’t wait to check out Jack’s other books.

Description 🔖

Anna is a heart surgeon. She is also a mother. Which one of these roles does she value the most?

When her son is kidnapped she is faced with the decision to either kill a man on her operating table or let her son be killed. It’s a no brainer for Anna, but does that make her a monster?

General Thoughts 🤔

When people describe this book as tense, they truly mean tense. I was hanging on to every single word, the entire time. Every chapter feels like waiting for something awful to happen and it is oh so very good. I found concentrating on anything but listening to this difficult, it was all consuming.

I loved this book and thought that the story was such a great idea. What I thought was going to be the whole story turned out to be so much more as I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole along with the characters.

Characters 👫👭👬

I really liked that the main characters in this book were all female. There are a lot of thrillers out there where women are the victims and men are the bad guys. Don’t get me wrong, there are victims and there are bad guys, but the lines are definitely blurred compared to most thrillers that I read.

I started off really liking Anna, but towards the end of the book, that had somewhat dissipated. I appreciate that a mother’s love is stronger than anything and she would have done anything to save her son, but she shifted to become quite heartless. There was little consideration in her decision making about what might happen after and indeed if her son was returned to her.

I actually felt really sorry for Margot through the entire story. She made bad decisions and I did question her morality, but she was a desperate woman. People with nothing to lose will do almost anything and I think that’s where Margot’s life had unfortunately gotten to. She was in constant survival mode and that can be a dangerous place to be.

Writing Style ✍️

This is the first book that I have read by Jack Jordan and I really enjoyed his tone and style of writing. Of course a multiple POV structure is my fave so this book played right into my hands. It was told from the perspective of three different female characters and I loved reading their perspectives on the same scene/scenario.

My favourite part of Jack Jordan’s writing was feeling like I had to expect the unexpected. As I already mentioned, after the first couple of chapters, I thought I had an idea of where this story was going to go (not the intricacies or how’s but a rough idea). But then very quickly, the story came to a point where my questions were already answered so I knew there was going to be more to it. I didn’t know how much more and the element of surprise with this book was what kept me hooked.

Conclusion & Scoring 🎖

I loved listening to this book. The story was thrilling, the characters were relatable and real and the writing was gripping and smart. You should most definitely get a copy of this book and put yourself on do not disturb whilst you binge. I can’t wait to now go and ready Jack Jordan’s other work as I have quite obviously been living under a rock.

I am not a huge thriller fan, but this is a very compelling book, which I thoroughly enjoyed and kept me reading far later into the night than was good for me. The premise is a very interesting one, we do tend to trust doctors when we have medical procedures, even though we know nothing about them, and this explores what happens when that trust may be misplaced.

I wasn’t very keen on the main character, although I understood her motivations and the hell she was living through, and I didn’t like the kleptomaniac nurse, although again I could see and understand her motivations.. The author does a good job in creating characters who are not very likeable, but who the reader feels some sympathy for, which is very hard to pull off.

The book is faced paced, well researched and really does make you think what you would do when faced with an impossible choice.

Thank you to the author, Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC in return for a honest review.

I very often find my self distracted with Audio but was keen to give this one a go ! It was a fab book and the audio worked well ! It didn’t grab me like I hoped it would but still doing it a great story and intriguing central characters , I will look out for more from this author but will not get audio next time ! Thanks

I loved this book from the start.
For me there are some books that would be better on audio, and some better in usual reading form. On this occasion I wish I had read it with my eyes. The narrator got slightly irritating and this wouldn’t have happened had I been reading it.
The pace was fantastic, there was drama and tension and everything that a cracking thriller needs. Superb writing and it definitely lived up to the hype!

What a strange story and I’m left with very mixed feelings. A top surgeon is forced to make a choice which will test every professional and moral standard. On the back of her decision there’s a sub plot involving a thieving nurse with a dysfunctional family background and a host of unsavoury characters intent on revenge and retribution.

I had the audio version and found the narrator who voiced Dr Anna Jones, the central character, too dramatic. Bit over the top and frequently irritating. I didn’t like any of the characters and felt little sympathy for them but the big problem is that many aspects are so far fetched the story became totally implausible. I found it quite gripping in parts, fast paced and fairly exciting. The end had a few twists but the final paragraph was just bizarre. I felt like I’d missed something. The story kind of came full circle but….

Overall, this was filled with potential but required belief to be suspended too often, so it didn’t quite work. I’d certainly look at other books by this author.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

Thank you very much NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced audio copy of Do No Harm in exchange of my honest opinion.

This is the third book that I read by Jack Jordan and now I can tell that he is a great author!

Do No Harm kept me on the edge of my seat from the very first chapter. It was fast-faced, with a great amount of action and both, likeable and unlikeable characters that made the journey more entertaining.

Once we got to the end of the first part, I didn't know what else to expect because everything seemed kind of solved already.

Little did I know the amount of action that I was in for! I really liked where the story went, what the characters had to go through and the ending.

Without any doubt, this is a solid 4⭐

Do No Harm is a fantastic novel that is told from the point of view of three different women. Anna is a surgeon who's son gets taken; she can get him back, but only if she is prepared to kill. Margot is a nurse who witnesses a murder, she turns to blackmail in return for keeping quiet. Rachel is a police officer who knows that something isn't right, but are the tragedies from her past blurring her vision?

At first, I found it a little confusing as there were no chapter titles to let you know which character each one was about. Once I got into it though...wow! This is a well written, fast paced thriller that I just couldn't finish quick enough. I was totally invested in the story and was hanging on the author's every word.

I really enjoyed this book, but couldn't help but feel a tiny bit disappointed with the ending; otherwise perfect and I'll be looking out for more books by Jack Jordan.

My thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers for sending me an ARC in return for an honest review.