AJ (Andy) Hill is a former Customs and Police Officer, his debut novel (DEAD DRIFT) in the Jack Lunn crime mystery series set in Hampshire’s New Forest, where he lived for thirty years. BLOODY BUTCHER is the follow up. An avid reader across the crime genre, reviewer for Shotsmag and regular at crime writing festivals, he now lives in West Sussex and works in property.
A sumptuous and glitzy Italian backdrop close to Sorrento is the setting for this sextet of ‘old friends’ holiday. Trips to Capri, top quality harbourside restaurants and a beautiful villa, all in celebration of a milestone 40th birthday. What could possibly spoil this idyll on the Amalfi coast?
Only it’s soon obvious that the veneer of friendship among our three couples is wafer thin. Any genuine generosity of feelings is tempered by the multiple agendas at play in the story. A tortuously tangled net of lies, which has trapped several members of this dubiously motivated and disparate gang-of-six deep in its grasp. Secrets, long held, that bind and poison in equal measure.
A mysterious figure is threatening via text to expose the truth about the time that several of this less than merry band were in Oxford together, unless they make the choice to come clean.
But what exactly happened, who did what and to whom?
Alex Chaudhuri handles the multi-character point of view narrative and dual timelines with elan and in a way that incrementally ratchets up the suspense, whilst keeping the reader both entertained, drip-fed with titbits of evidence and eager for more. This reader was never quite sure which narrator was reliable, if any, and who is selfishly scheming to their own ends. Trust me, there’s a good deal of self-interest being guarded here.
There is an array of twists, both subtle and surprising, that will delight, shock and kept this reader guessing. No one is coming out of this with their hands or consciences clean and someone is going to end up dead.
The Final Party should definitely be among your Summer 2023 reads. Clever, shocking, well-paced and tightly written
