The Guests

The weather in the UK has been largely miserable for the first half of the year and those of us with a slightly more positive disposition have been using the enforced indoor time as an excellent opportunity to read. While I wait indoors for the latest storm to blast through the town where I live, I love nothing more than turning to a book filled with warmth and sunshine. And murder, of course! The Guests by Nikki Smith fits the description perfectly.

Set on an exclusive and idyllic island resort in the Maldives, The Guests focuses on the Hamilton family; eager to leave their real-life problems behind and relax in their peaceful and luxurious over-water villa with Turquoise Ocean as far as the eye can see. But with each of the guests willing to tell lies to ensure their secrets are kept, it’s difficult to know who can be trusted.

I think it is the skill of a great author to have the reader asking questions from the first chapter of a book. The very best authors can and do provide several reasons for a reader to want to continue reading: to keep turning the pages in a quest to satisfy their thirst for information. This is something Smith achieved in spades. So much so, I read the whole book in a day. (It did help that I had a free afternoon on my hands!)

The sense of place, leapt of the page and every opportunity. I could feel the heat of the sun, the irritating sand between my toes and sweat trickling from my brow. Each of these components added to the tension maintained almost to the very last page.

If there was one thing I wasn’t keen on, it would be the last chapter or two. There is a countdown to something at the beginning of each chapter and I was waiting for an “ah-ha” moment that never really came. In a book like The Guests, I do prefer to have things wrapped up in a nice little bow for me, and I didn’t get that here.

There are lots of reveals placed strategically throughout the book, and I find myself preferring these over big twists more and more. I love a good twist as much as the next crime thriller reader, but they can only be done so many times. These days I do enjoy questions posed and to be pondered by the reader, followed by the answer given at a tremendously appropriate juncture.

The Guests is going to be the holiday read of the summer and I can think of no better place to read it than on a sun lounger.