Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
Reality shows: love them or loathe them or dismiss them as puerile, no one can deny that they have potential for murder. And if ten beautiful people marooned on a paradise island is not suggestive enough, throw in a tropical storm, dwindling food stocks and no communication with the outside world and there’s no mystery as to what will happen, only who will survive, and how.
In One Perfect Couple the narrator is Lyla, a virologist, not herself hungry for fame but bullied into joining by her partner, Nico, an aspiring actor, who maintains that all reality shows are faked, that rules can be bent, and that the publicity of being a contestant, let alone a winner, would make his name. Lyla is sceptical but she goes along because the contest is for couples and he needs her and she has nothing to lose.
And the location is quite enchanting as viewed two weeks later from the boat that brings the contestants to a tiny island in the Indian Ocean. There are the coconut palms, the golden sand, the coral reef (they’re assured that the sharks stay outside the reef) but once ashore, they’re infuriated when told to surrender their phones and laptops. All protests are met with the reminder that this was a clause in the contract; they can back out and go home but then they’ll be sued.
The cameras are already turning and microphones are live; when Nico shortly loses out in the first heat of the contest he goes berserk, only to be banished to the boat before being sent home in disgrace. How much is fake? Who is bluffing for the cameras?
Overnight there’s a tropical storm. Trees fall on cabins, two people die, and by dawn the boat has gone. With it went Nico, the producers, staff and crew, leaving nine survivors alone on an island with dwindling stocks of bottled water and food and no means of communication.
It’s a situation out of Christie by Lord of the Flies. It may be days before they are rescued, perhaps weeks, if at all. A hierarchy evolves ostensibly based on the necessity to ration the water. Intimidation follows, then cheating, abuse and blackmail. Things fall apart with the first murder but then people re-group; they connive and start to plot: working out how to find a way to survive: to kill, and to get away with it.
Nicely done; Ms Ware has produced an entertaining holiday read couched in modern English – as she is spoke -- but with flowing narrative and even better dialogue.
Highly recommended.
