When You Are Mine

"When a woman has been traumatised again and again by a partner who claims to love them, it starts to warp her reality. She begins to doubt herself, to mistrust her perceptions. She believes she is worthless and deserves to be punished."

When You Are Mine is the fifth stand-alone novel by award-winning best-selling Australian author, Michael Robotham. When PC Philomena McCarthy and her partner attend a domestic violence call, they are not expecting to arrest a cop. But by the time Phil has removed the somewhat reluctant victim, Tempe Brown, to safety, things have been put into motion behind the scenes.

It turns out that, not only is DS Darren Goodall a lauded hero in a stabbing incident, but he also has friends with clout in the brass. When Phil returns from suspension, things have been tidied away and no action taken. But she has been explicitly warned off, and finds herself ostracised by her colleagues.

Then Guardian freelancer, Dylan Holstein accosts her with allegations of earlier foul play by the hero, and challenges Phil to prove she is not her father's daughter. Phil has kept her background as private as possible: Eddie McCarthy's reputation for theft, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion did not, ultimately prevent her from becoming a cop, but even though she has been estranged from him for six years, making it common knowledge would not help matters.

It seems that Dylan has had a run-in with Eddie McCarthy, and not long after he speaks to Phil, his body is pulled from the Thames…

Back on the job, Phil cannot resist doing a little research on Goodall, and finds herself befriending Tempe, and reaching out to Goodall's wife, Alison. But controlling men don't give up what they feel they own easily.

As usual, Robotham gives the reader a clever plot that has twists and turns and wrinkles that grab from page one and make it impossible to put down until the final, satisfying, last line. His characters are easily believable, and if, in her friendship with Tempe, Phil seems a little naïve for a PC, perhaps her judgement is coloured by Tempe's situation, forgetting that a victim may not necessarily be innocent.

In this topical and highly relevant novel about domestic abuse, toxic friendship and family baggage, Robotham illustrates what must be a woman's worst fear: to have the misfortune to fall in love with a man who turns out to be a monster, and one who knows the system intimately and how to use it to his advantage. This novel is once again proof that the name Michael Robotham guarantees a brilliant read.