Karen spent 30+ years as a Civil Servant, mostly in Revenue which is where she developed my absolute hatred of poor writing skills! Her favourite genre is now crime/thriller/police procedural/legal genre with the occasional foray into chick-lit and general fiction.
Nine friends get together in a remote Scottish location to celebrate New Year 2019, but one of them ends up dead.
The story is told from several points-of-view (including two staff members), some of it is relayed in flashback to produce this tense and claustrophobic mystery.
Although we know someone is dead from the commencement of this narrative, we do not find out the identity of the victim until much later.
This novel has been assembled adroitly by the author. Suspense is heightened by the construction of the character’s back-stories, without the reader knowing which of them will end up a corpse.
This novel is well written, flows coherently due to real characterisation - all intertwined within an unusual plot.
A blast of chilly fresh-air for the reader of the psychological thriller genre, updating the classic golden age crime story for our contemporary times.
