Disturbingly Real and Captivating Political Thriller <3 | ARC Review: To Kill A Man by Sam Bourne

Tomorrow’s most explosive thriller, today

Cynthia Wright is a rising star in American politics, strongly tipped as a future candidate for president. One night she is violently assaulted in her home by an intruder. She defends herself and minutes later, the intruder lies dead. Wright is hailed as a #MeToo heroine: the woman who fought back.

But inconsistencies emerge in Wright’s story, suggesting that the attack might not have been as random as it first seemed.

When former White House troubleshooter Maggie Costello is drafted in to investigate, she finds intriguing gaps, especially over Wright’s early life. She likes this woman, who she believes could – and should – be president. But she can’t shake off the question: who exactly is Cynthia Wright?

A cat-and-mouse conspiracy thriller of rare intelligence, To Kill a Man explores an unsettling world in which justice is in the eye of the beholder and revenge seems to be the only answer.

Disclaimer: I received a physical copy of the book from Hachette India in exchange for an honest review! However, the thoughts, opinions expressed in the review are entirely my own.

This is the second book that I have read from Sam Bourne – fell quite possibly in love with his writing style with To Kill The Truth (Read My Review) – the author’s ability to use social and community issues of real life and using it as a foundation to a political fast paced thriller, you just can’t help but binge read!

To Kill A Man stands alone, even though it centres around the Washington trouble shooter Maggie Costello; an intelligent, smart and driven woman who tends to be the one high flying politicians and big wigs call to get ahead of the scandal they believe might be damaging to their reputation and career.

In this installment, Natasha Winthrop, a privileged white woman, slowly on the rise in the political world, is brutally sexually attacked in her own home; which ends in Natasha killing her own assailant. With the social media as it is, she is hailed as a heroine and a champion for not just the self defence rights but also those of the gun right activists!

But when the police start investigating this seemingly open and shut case; they not only find inconsistencies in her account of what happened that night, but also find some evidence that points to the simple fact that what Natasha wants the world to believe isn’t exactly the truth.

Natasha, being touted as a Presidential candidate, ropes in Maggie Costello to push in front of the scandal that seems to be erupting on the social media after some damning new evidence that comes to light. She gives full access to Maggie, for a deep dive into her past and her present – insisting that she has nothing to hide nor any secrets to protect.

What follows is a fast paced captivating political thriller with some twisted and shocking revelations that will keep you turning the pages until you have lost all sense of reality, time and space – because every single incident, every twist in the page would feel as if something that is absolutely and definitely possible in real life.

It isn’t just the way the author has shown the effect of #MeToo Movement, of how information is twisted for selfish purposes on social media, of how law/legality address the issue of rape and sexual assault, the reason why victims find it hard to come forward to report crimes; the small instances in a woman’s everyday life where her boundaries have been violated, yet somehow doubting if it had actually happened – if you are a woman/identify as a woman- then the instances, the helplessness expressed within this book will be a familiar aspect to you.

In the end, what Sam Bourne has done is written a political thriller that is disturbing and chilling in the simple fact that shows how absolutely easy it would be for all or any of this to happen to you too.