A sister’s worst nightmare. A homicide detective’s destiny.
Everybody loves Claire’s little sister, Tina. But only Claire sees the twisted psychopath hiding behind her sister’s angelic face. When Tina is brutally murdered on her fourteenth birthday, the day Claire failed to walk her home from school, Claire never forgives herself. And neither does their mother.
Twelve years later, more girls turn up dead in Newburgh exactly like Tina. Claire, now a police detective, suspects that her sister’s murderer is still on the prowl. But the serial killer stumps the FBI forensic profiler assisting the case and Special Agent Robert Cline—Claire’s old flame.
When Claire becomes the lead suspect in the murder investigation, the system turns against her. Unable to trust anyone—not even herself—Claire must break every rule in the book to save the next girl.
With time running out in this nerve-shredding psychological thriller and harrowing family drama, a shocking discovery changes everything. Is Claire’s sister truly dead—or is she playing one final lethal prank?
YOU DID THIS is the first book in the Claire Wolfe Thrillers series and can be read as a standalone mystery. Fans of Mike Omer, Robert Dugoni, Melinda Leigh, and Karin Slaughter should get to know Claire Wolfe.
If I could give a book negative stars I would. Terrible story with silly "twists", awful dialog and a supposedly intelligent main character who couldn't decide if *she* was a serial killer or not.
An absolutely riveting First Episode . . . I am already a Claire Wolfe / Jamie Millen fan!
Millen has a way with characters that makes them real and enticing. Revealing snippets of personalities throughout the narrative, this author is well-versed in keeping readers hanging on every word.
We have long-held grudges, intriguing new crimes, all with a hint of a thread that connects them in some way. Could it be that Claire herself is the bad influence?
I won't tell you more, but I will tell you this: Jamie Millen has crafted You Did This into exactly the kind of thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat obsessively turning pages till the very last word.
And then, you'll wait impatiently for the next volume! I highly recommend this book!!!
[I was fortunate to receive a pre-publication copy of the book, with no obligation to review. The opinions expressed herein are given freely and are entirely my own.]
Wowwwwww. This author clearly failed to conduct even the simplest research on law enforcement protocol and due process. A five-minute Google search on the very definition of due process may have helped this story at least limp along with some semblance of credibility. The plausibility of access to handfuls of federal agents to take out a presumed-guilty, small-town cop at the hand of a sniper based solely on conjecture and gut feel, all before lunch..? For the love, dear author - at least watch an episode or two of CSI before attempting a sequel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I enjoyed the book, but just the fact that it says Claire Wolfe thrillers book 1 makes it pretty obvious she wasn’t the killer. That took a lot of the fun out of it for me. Also, cops don’t start saying serial killer until there are three murders. You had them saying it after two. Otherwise, good book.
Completely absurd. It wasn’t boring though, so if you like twisty suspenseful thrillers, I think it could suffice. I struggled to suspend my belief, and there were too many false leads meant to throw the reader off balance but they were like cheap jump thrills in a horror movie. Also the book probably could’ve been 30% shorter without losing anything actually related to the plot.
I read this because it was free on Kindle Unlimited and sounded interesting. I knew the book was written by a man within minutes due to the hyperfixation on the female characters’ appearances. Millen doesn’t devote half as much time, if any, to what the men look like but every woman is described as “pretty.” Even the murdered 14-year-old sister has a whole scene where her body is described in detail. The murdered sister is sexualized a LOT, and her characterization sort of implies she deserved what was coming to her. I did not think the sisterly dynamic was at all convincing, even though he was obviously trying to portray a toxic sibling dynamic. There is ONE line near the end where we realize maybe it’s their parents’ fault they didn’t get along.
Besides that, the plot twists are unbelievable at times, and much of the dialogue (particularly from the mother) is overly dramatic. There are numerous typing errors and repetitive wording throughout.
I do think the central premise of the story was great. It’s what got me to read it! The execution was just not there. I think if you want a procedural thriller without thinking too hard about it, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it. It does a good job keeping readers in suspense.
If the author reads these, please trust that your readers don’t need to know how pretty your female protagonist is when it’s totally irrelevant to her character. There’s nothing wrong with writing a woman and not analyzing whether she is pleasing to the male eye.
The outcome of this book is bizarre and super fascinating! I just couldn’t get very into it, which very well could’ve been because I tried listening to a majority of it through Audible — I had not tried listening to a book yet. But really, I wasn’t a fan of the POV at all. I hated it and wished one of the characters would’ve narrated. I also wasn’t a fan of the recurring statements; I felt like things kept being repeated and I was just rereading and rereading and rereading. It was a solid story, but I couldn’t get past how it was presented and written. I especially hated how the mother talked to the main character throughout the book — it drove me NUTS and she just kept saying the same awful remarks.
This has amazing reviews and I get the hype but I did think it was a little long and slow for my liking. I did enjoy the twists and I’m so glad it didn’t go in the direction I thought it was going.
Typically I like women writing a woman main character. At one point I knew a guy wrote this because a girl went from black hair to blonde (by herself with just box dye) in one single night (impossible it would be orange 😂) and then when someone said “you’re going to keep the blonde?” she said “yeah it takes a while to wash out” LMAO
You Did This by Jamie Millen is the first book in the Claire Wolfe series. The murder of Claire Wolfe's little sister Tina, sees Claire determined to solve her case becoming a police detective and joining the Newburgh police force, but when girls start being killed in a similar manner, Claire finds herself as chief suspet. A twisted and fast paced thriller although rather strange. Claire was supposed to be intelligent and smart and her doubting thoughts about herself made no sense. Parts of the story were highly improbable and the ending was strange. Otherwise an interesting mystery.
I've never heard of this author before this book. I stumbled across this audiobook by typing Freida McFadden into my @scribd app, and this was a suggested book. I'm so glad I picked it (not knowing it was 1 of a 3 part series).
The narrator was perfect for this book. She kept you engaged, and I imagined it was actually Claire Wolf thr main character speaking to me. The book involves a lot of police procedures and whodunit questions around every corner. There are so many suspects, and you think you've figured it out, but it's only halfway through the book.
It starts out when Claire and her sister Tina are in school and something terrible happens to Tina. Unfortunately, no one knows what happened, but Claire's mom swears it was Claire's fault. Fast Forward 12 years; Detective Claire Wolf of the Boston Police Department requests to be moved to Newburgh PD; back home to solve her sister's murder.
Will she find the killer? Or will you have to wait until the next two books?
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Claire is the one left out, she's the dark to her sister Tina's light. Everyone sees Tina, the blonde haired, blued eyed angel, with the thousand watt smile. Claire is the only one who knows what Tina is really like, she has seen the psychopath that lurks beneath the perfect façade. So when Tina is brutally murdered on her fourteenth birthday - the one day Claire didn't walk her home from school - Claire can't forgive herself, and neither can her mother. Fast forward twelve years and Claire is now a detective. Returning home has been her plan all along, the one thing that kept her going was the need to solve Tina's murder and catch the killer that the Newburgh police couldn't. But something dark is lurking in the shadows of Claire's home town, and the killing has started again. Claire knows it has to be Tina's killer coming out of retirement, only this is no run of the mill Serial Killer. This is a killer who can outsmart even the most adept FBI personnel and profilers. When Claire ends up being put in the spot light as a lead suspect, unable to trust anyone, especially herself, she'll need to break every rule in the book in order to bring the killer to justice and save the next girl. The clock is ticking...
I became a huge fan of psychological thrillers a couple of years ago, and this one is up there as one of the best that I've read. A beautiful blend of serial killer crime and psychological mindf*ck, this story kept me guessing the whole time. What I loved about this story is that it didn't read like a regular crime or police procedural story, and that's fantastic, no hate towards those kinds of books, but they can get a little bogged down in the ins and outs of the little case details and it can get kind of stale, this has all the needed information, and none of the bore. And I am LIVING for it.
This story is so well written that I had no clue what was going to happen, I will say, I did guess one of the minor players as soon as we meet them, but honestly that was neither here nor there. I THOUGHT I had everything worked out, and when one thing happened and I was like "Oh wow, I didn't see that coming, huh." then this other thing happened that blew that first thing out of the water and OH MY GOD!! I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!! This is the first book in a long time that surprised me THAT much. I didn't pick it, not at all, even when you're sort of given a crumb of a hint, I didn't read the hint that way! I did not see that ending coming and wow. That's all I can honestly say. Wow. Also, this is one of the best cases of unreliable narrator that I've ever read. It honestly had me not knowing who I could trust and who I couldn't and I feel like it really threw me into the deep end of the story and made me feel fully immersed. Millen's ability in his craft is phenomenal, the way that Claire ends up isolated and cut off from literally EVERYONE, I felt that in my soul. The slow build of a claustrophobic atmosphere as you know you're running out of time, this book left me breathless and I struggled to put it down.
The characters in this story were so well written, full off the page, as real as you or I, dimensional. I felt for Claire so badly, as we first meet her when her sister dies, and we get snippets of her childhood throughout the book, this all really endeared her to me and I couldn't help but ache for what she had lost, and what that had done to her familial relationships and her self esteem. Even though Tina is dead, and has been for twelve years, I couldn't help but hate her. As we learn more about the kind of person she was, I hated her. I did feel for the fact that her life had been snuffed out too soon, but I still hated her. She was so manipulative and conniving and she just made me love Claire's character even more. Getting to see Claire's parents and the way the death of her sister STILL weighed on them was an amazing addition as well. I'd love to talk about every single characters in depth, but I just can't. I'll prattle on for hours if you let me.
The story was riveting and kept me guessing the whole time. There was no plot holes that jumped out and threatened to swallow me whole, so I love that this story felt air tight and kept me guessing the whole time. It was an absolute page turner, especially as you slowly descend into madness trying to figure out if our narrator can be trusted or not. The sense of urgency just kept building and building, even during the big reveal at the end, the tension and urgency still kept ratcheting up. Absolutely mind blowing.
I'm not going to keep rambling. I don't want to give anything away, not even the smallest detail. This is a book that you need to go into not knowing what to expect or who's going to come out the other side, trust me, you'll love it. Do yourself a huge favour, if you love dark crime, psychological thrillers, so much suspense you could carve it with a spoon and wonderful writing that will grab you by the throat and drag you under, give this book a go. I highly recommend it. And I've just noticed that this is a series....I. Am. In. HEAVEN!!
Lol… stop. If you read this book just know that logic is not needed. Yeet that s*** to the moon. The dialogue was awfully written & sometimes unintentionally comical. The twists in this book are SO silly. The author clearly has no knowledge and did little to no research on police procedures. This book was gifted to me last year for Christmas, I wish I was the type of person to DNF because wow. Wow in the worst way.
Not for me... was a very quick read, so that's good. Had a very teenage drama T.V. show vibe, but not a good one lol. It's very riverdale-ish. Predictable, young writing, very cheesy, unrealistic, and the twist had me rolling my eyes. Not my cup of tea.
Took me a minute to get into this one, as it ran slow to me, BUT so very well done! Great characters and a storyline that had me saying wtf quite frequently! It's been a while since I have come across something I enjoyed this much! Can't wait to read the next one!
Fabulous thriller. Kept me guessing to the very end. I haven’t read a crime thriller this good in a long time. Definitely gonna read more by this author.
3.5 ⭐️ This one is tough because, on one hand, the story is so compelling and entertaining. It's fast-paced and an easy read. However, I just felt that overall, it is a little flawed. Everything is way too "convenient"...like the fact that Claire's high school boyfriend just so happened to be the new FBI agent on her team?? Or the fact that Claire moves back from Boston joins the police force in her hometown, and they just so happen to have an opening? And the fact that her sister's murder was a cold case? Jamie....come on now, lol. I am choosing to take this at face value...it is what it is, and I think it's worth it enough to read it if you're looking for a book where you don't have to think too hard
I paid for this, an unknown author to me, as the premise sucked me in. However, it took me a few days to plough through it. It began well but then I seemed to find it a little harder to get back into. There were too many mistakes, which always gets my back up, anyway. Then a great deal seemed way too farfetched for my liking, which made parts unbelievable to me which spoilt it. Some chapters took us back in time to before Tina died but he didn't label those chapters so just launched into it which was strange. I wondered for ages how old Claire was and we didn't find out till we were 34% in. The name of Captain Emmerso caught my eye all the time as I kept "seeing" Emmerson so it looked like a mistake each time I read it. He wrote tick not tic, there are apostrophe mistakes (which NO author seems to manage to get right in the digital format), then at one point I was furious when he wrote that Ms Maynard joined the principal.....when Ms Maynard WAS the principal !! Sloppy in the extreme and should've been picked up. Please was written, not pleased, pent breath when it's usually pent-up breath, capitalised Forensics at times then didn't, we had hangars not hangers, then Jed changed his name to Jede once !! I've never seen anyone write 1am as one AM before, either. Neither is there too much imagination naming his characters, as we had a Claire Wolfe along with a Justin Fox, then an FBI agent, Tom Brown, wore brown (!!) I didn't believe for one minute that a homicide detective wouldn't know what 'unsub' meant, either, I'm afraid. I did stick with it till the end but was pretty disappointed overall.
My opinions are my own and not influenced by my receiving "You Did This" as an ARC. This is a good book and I recommend you make the time to read it. Here is why. The flow of the story is really good. The characters are multi-deminsional and become people I believe you will care about.
The story is about a serial killer but you should not have reservations if you are sensitive. The book is character driven and does not rely upon shocking the audience. The story has a strong female lead and is very believable in that role.
The writing is suitable everybody and I enjoyed the entire story. There were no boring bits and I could not predict events based upon the chapter or from other books I have read. I read this book easily in a single day and found great satisfaction for having read such an excellent book; "You Did This" would be perfect for work, home or on vacation.
I could not put this book down. Claire is a strong female detective who gets herself in quite the mess when she returns to her hometown. She returns to solve the twelve year old murder case of her sister Tina. However, upon her return more fourteen year old girls resembling her sister turn up dead. As the body count rises so does the evidence incriminating Claire. Is Claire responsible? Or is there someone else pulling the strings? The end of this one took soooo many twists and turns. I was not disappointed in the slightest.
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for my honest feedback. Cannot wait to read the next in the series, I look forward to revisiting those characters.
I'm not great at predicting the who is in most whodunits. That's why, with this one, the hints seemed too easy. Was this autoimmune DID? Allow myself to arrest myself? I was right to be skeptical. I still have questions. Like, why the teacher went along with it. I have very mixed feelings about the mom. She may not be the monster I imagined but she is a monster, nonetheless. I don't know if the dad ever loved Claire, or was just making her in his own image. The latter, I think, considering how easy it was to throw her away. I've already gone to the author's website and downloaded book 2. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
The very first chapter of this book was excellent, and then it went completely downhill from there. Most of what Claire does makes no sense whatsoever. Both her sister and her mother had been HORRID to her their entire lives, and yet everything she does, she does for them???? WHAT? She talks about never having a boyfriend except for one boy she kissed in high school, and yep, you guessed it, he shows up as an FBI agent and becomes the love of her life.... WHAT??? The whole book and plot were just so ill conceived and nonsensical. Even the 'twist' at the end was just stupid.