Member Review

Any book which is recommended to people who like Ruth Ware is probably going to be right up my alley, I think this is better than the Ruth Ware novels I've read but it does have a similar feel. I loved the concept and I think it was pulled off incredibly well.

A bunch of people who have been friends since university have a New Year holiday every year, they take turns at organising it and this time it is Emma who has done the job. She has chosen an extremely remote hunting lodge for them to spend New Year in the Scottish highlands. They are a volatile group of people, some get along better than others but a tradition is a tradition and they all turn up for these holidays. It is a classic scenario, remoteness in a lovely wild place, all kinds of disparate people trapped there in a snowstorm, no way in or out, no way to contact the outside world or get help when one of them turns up dead in the middle of the night. It could have been written by a modern day Agatha Christie. Along with the guests you have a young woman, running away from her previous life and a dour man who is riddled with his own secrets. These two run the lodge and the only other person on the scene is a handyman who doesn't live on site. So, who was killed and why and who did it!

This book is clever, chapters from various points of view leave you unsettled as secrets are revealed but which look different from other people's perspectives. Of course, there are secrets between the couples, stories which have never been told and things which are buried deep in the past, the tension is so well played. It is really hard to pick who is going to die and even harder to figure out who committed the crime. Information is metered out cleverly and gradually.

This book has a great deal to recommend it, the vocabulary is fantastic. I love the short chapters which keep you pushing forward to find out what will come next. This is a fantastic book. Highly recommended to those who like their thrillers full to the brim with tension.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me access to this excellent read. I've gone out and bought a copy for our library, I know lots of people will love it.