Book review: The Jump by Doug Johnstone

Take Ellie Napier. Since her teenage son killed himself six months ago, she has been making daily visits to the towering Forth Road Bridge where he threw himself to his death. She traces her only child’s last journey and swims in the swirling estuary waters that killed him.

But when she sees a chance to atone for her son’s death, Ellie finds herself immersed in secrets so dark and so disturbing that she is soon dangerously out of her depth.

Doug Johnstone, author of a string of gripping thrillers, including Gone Again, Hit & Run and The Dead Beat, returns to home territory in Edinburgh in a pulsating psychological page-turner which blends edge-of-the-seat suspense with a searing exploration of love, loss and parenthood.

Harnessing his now trademark gifts for superb plotting and sizzling action, Johnstone uses his heart as well as his ‘thriller’ brain in this moving and very contemporary tale which lays bare the devastating effects of a child’s unexplained death.

Guilt, emotional paralysis, obsession, isolation, despair and recklessness all have a part to play as a lost and bereaved mother decides that you can do anything… if you have nothing left to lose.

Ellie Napier and her husband Ben have still not come to terms with the death of their 15-year-old son Logan six months ago. He left no suicide note, had made no previous attempts to kill himself and had never made a cry for help.