Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Nicole and Tom have it all, a strong marriage, a beautiful home in rural Gloucestershire and, thanks to a lottery win, enough money to build a new life there. The trouble is, when things most look like they’re going right, is often the point at which they start to go wrong.
When Tom is found dead in their swimming pool with a head injury that suggests suspicious circumstances neighbours Olly and Sasha and their housekeeper Kitty are supportive. As the investigation progresses though Nicole begins to wonder if they are quite so friendly as they seem.
This is an accomplished psychological thriller that will please MacMillan’s growing army of fans. She takes one of the genre’s favourite tropes, the closed community, and uses it to create a miniature world where nobody is entirely what they seem and every motive is likely to be an ulterior one.
To this she adds a neat combination of the age-old warnings to be careful what you wish for, and that money can’t buy happiness, and our thoroughly modern obsession with reinventing ourselves. Each of her skillfully drawn characters is, at some level, trying to be something they aren’t, engaged in a plate spinning routine where everything is fated to come crashing down sooner or later.
How that comes about and what, if anything, they do with the smashed crockery of their hopes is what makes this book so enjoyable. It also establishes Gilly MacMillan as one of the best writers of dark and twisty thrillers currently at work.
