Bad Blood

Set against the backdrop of a small English town, *Bad Blood* follows Justine Stone, a barrister tasked with prosecuting her former boyfriend for a brutal double murder. The case forces her back into a past she has spent twelve years escaping, unraveling secrets about her own family that complicate everything she thought she knew about the crime. Hornsley builds the tension through two timelines, weaving Justine's courtroom present against the murky events of her youth in a story where legal duty and personal survival pull in opposite directions.

Gemma Whelan brings an incisive quality to the narration that suits a protagonist who argues for a living yet struggles to speak certain truths aloud. Her controlled delivery makes the cracks in Justine's composure land harder when they appear. At just over ten hours, the pacing is tight, and the intimate first-person structure translates especially well to audio, placing listeners directly inside a narrator who is unreliable by profession and necessity.