Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
I have been binging on rather a lot of crime thrillers over the last year or so and have found that many follow a rather predictable pattern – this one was rather different though, as the story was told through the eyes of the defendant’s friends. It quickly became apparent that this group of friends were going to be intertwined with the recent murder of their former teacher, and a fellow pupil, twenty years previously.
‘Richard, me and our friend Paige spent almost all our time together then… If the three of us weren’t doing something together, then two of us would be.’
Whilst Harry, the narrator, is himself rather nondescript, as is Richard, the defendant, I did like the character of Paige. She is much more complex than her two friends, and set up a series of red herrings linked to her rather complicated life. I found it rather odd that we hear so little from Richard in this book, and this meant that the two sleuthing friends went a little Nancy Drew in places, especially in the beginning.
There were some good twists in this towards the end, and although the rather small collection of named characters doesn’t leave much room for guessing who the murderer(s) might be, I was unable to guess their motives, although all of the clues had been there all along, which is something that I really like in a crime novel.
Overall, this was an entertaining read and I’d read others by the same author. It’s not too taxing, but I’d certainly put her on my holiday reading list when we can finally fly away somewhere again.
Wordy Witterings 