Amy Myers is known for her short stories and historical novels featuring Victorian chef Auguste Didier and chimney sweep Tom Wasp. Her contemporary series feature ex-cop Peter Marsh and Daughter and classic car detective Jack Colby, and she is currently working on a new series starring Cara Shelley who runs a café in the grounds of stately home Tanton Towers.
Website: www.amymyers.net
Sarah
Alderson’s Friends Like These is a tour de
force right from the first page – the transcript of a 999 call from an unnamed
female caller. From that it’s not hard to realise that there’s going to be a
twist (or maybe several) in the storyline, but I was so engrossed in reading it
that I forgot that until it took place.
Lizzie
and Becca are old friends – or are they? They worked in the same office, so
Lizzie explains to PC Kandiah after a missing person report has been filed on
Becca. Becca was addicted to social media, especially when posting on the
subject of her fantastic boyfriend James. Perhaps however, Lizzie tells the
police, she and Becca weren’t such friends after all. She didn’t feel she
really knew Becca – ‘not the real her’, she says. No one knew her.
The
novel switches from Lizzie’s to Becca’s viewpoint throughout, sometimes at
short intervals, which is rather confusing when all one wants to do is whizz
over the pages and find out what happens next – but I still whizzed. The author now lives in California where she
writes TV scripts as well as novels, and the mix is a good one for the text of Friends Like These springs to life off
the page.
