Goodbye, Dearest Holly - Ten Years On by Kevin Wells.

On the 4th August 2002, Holly Wells and her friend Jessica Chapman disappeared from her home in Red House Gardens in Soham. In 2005 her father Kevin Wells published a book in memory of his daughter Holly and how he coped with her murder, the police investigations, the trial and the media. His book was updated with an additional chapter in 2012 to give his perspective on the 10 years following the death of Holly.

I am pleased that Kevin has updated his book as it makes for a fascinating read. I got an awful lot from reading this book because Kevin is very open and you get the full picture of how he coped with the disappearance and murder of his daughter Holly. The level of detail Kevin gives the reader is tremendous and the whole story is told strictly according to the timeline. There are no flashbacks in this book, which is one of my pet hates in regular crime thriller novels. Yet this is not a novel, it is a true story and is very raw. Kevin writes so clearly and I got so involved with his book that I had to consciously remember that this was not a novel but a true story.

With each chapter I learned more and more in the same way that Kevin did as everything was new and he did not know what was around the corner.

Goodbye Holly is a memorable book to read, I learned a lot about things that were not covered in the newspaper reports at the time. Kevin gives you the inside story which in places made me cry. Kevin is not a professional author, he is a window cleaner yet his writing quality is very high indeed and has a similar style to the popular British crime thriller author Peter James. Like in Peter’s novels, Goodbye Holly has lots of police procedure to inform the reader about the inner workings of the judicial system plus some paranormal experiences to make you wonder.

Throughout this book, Kevin keeps his perspective on things. He is not alone in his grief and misfortune because other parents who have lost a child contact him. Kevin tells the reader how his loss fits into the great scheme of things and how much genuine support he has received from the public. Goodbye Holly is a real eye opener and at the end I understood fully just what Kevin has gone through. I got so much out of this book which creates a valuable historical record of a crime that captured the hearts of our nation. Kevin’s book is so good and created such an impression upon  me that I will vote it the top score of 5 stars. Goodbye Holly draws a line under the death of Holly and thankfully Kevin and Nicola’s marriage survived the trauma unlike the failed marriages of 98 per cent of couples who lose a child through murder.

Goodbye, Dearest Holly is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and was published in 2012.