Book Summary and Reviews of When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham

When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham

When You Are Mine

A Novel

by Michael Robotham

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Published:
  • Jan 2022, 368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

In this page-turning psychological thriller from an author who Stephen King called "an absolute master," a young female police officer faces danger on all fronts - from a clever victim of abuse, her colleagues on the force, and even her own mobster father.

Philomena McCarthy is a young, ambitious police office with the elite Metropolitan Police in London. When she responds to a domestic violence call, she finds the victim, Tempe Brown, trying to protect her abuser, a married man named Darren Goodall, a decorated Scotland Yard detective afraid of no one. As Philomena pursues the case against him, she not only encounters resistance from her police force colleagues but also becomes dangerously entangled with the victim—who is not at all whom she appears to be—much to the increasing endangerment of herself and Henry, her fiancée.

Complicating matters is Philomena's estranged father Edward McCarthy, a powerful man who has built a criminal empire along with his brothers. Philomena has long tried to pursue her career as a police officer without her father's involvement, but as she falls under suspicion of stalking and harassing Goodall, her father becomes involved.

As the situation escalates, Tempe's sinister maneuvers further entangle Philomena in a web of secrets, corruption, and murder, putting Philomena's impending marriage, career, and very survival in jeopardy…​

Spellbinding, suspenseful, and filled with complex characters that could be heroes or villains, Robotham has crafted a smart and propulsive thriller that's impossible to put down.

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What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
...Our Last Vineyard Summer by Brooke Lea Foster and The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny are both available to download. Great timing, as I had just completed When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham.
-Sunny

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[E]xpertly-paced...Sidestepping all the clichés—the tough-girl humor is perfectly pitched and never overdone—the novel is as psychologically nuanced and emotionally engaging as it is suspenseful...A flawless and compassionate psychological thriller." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[A] nail-biter...Robotham tightens the screws on his sympathetic lead incrementally as the action builds to a satisfying climax. Lisa Unger fans will be riveted." - Publishers Weekly

This information about When You Are Mine was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Michael Robotham Author Biography

Michael Robotham is a former investigative journalist whose bestselling psychological thrillers have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has twice won a Ned Kelly Award for Australia's best crime novel, for Lost in 2005 and Shatter in 2008. His recent novels include When She Was Good, winner of the UK's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller; The Secrets She Keeps; Good Girl, Bad Girl; When You Are Mine; Lying Beside You; Storm Child; and The White Crow. After living and writing all over the world, Robotham settled his family in Sydney, Australia.

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