Shallow Grave meets The Secret History in this quirky psychological thrillerWhen you’re bound together by secrets and lies who do you trust? Bristol, 1988.Five young graduates on the threshold of their careers buy a house together in order to get a foot on the property ladder before prices spiral out of their reach. But it soon becomes the house share from hell. After their New Year’s Eve party, …
After their New Year’s Eve party, they discover a body – and it’s clear they’ll be the first suspects. As each of them has a good reason from their past not to trust the police, they come up with a solution – one which forces them into a life of secrets and lies.
But can they trust each other?
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This story recounts what happened when five trainee journalists, who were working at the same company, decided to buy a house together to enable them to get a foot on the quickly escalating property ladder of the late 1980’s in England.
Although very different people, the five of them – Emily (who narrates the story up until the present day), Stuart, Zak, Imogen and Xanthe, get on well enough to live with each others’ differences and quirks, this changes….
A New Year’s Eve party at their house blows their relatively pleasant association with each other out of the water when a body is found in the basement and uncovers a tangled web as they mistakenly decide that the best thing to do is to cover up whatever happened.
But who was responsible? Was it was of them or someone else? There was a party going on after all, so it could have been anyone….
As things progress, it becomes clear that there is a continuous train of lies, deceit and mistrust between them all.
Without adding spoilers, I cannot say any more, but I can say that this book is exceptionally well-written, with many twists and had me staying up well past when I should have done because I wanted to know what happened!
I really enjoyed this story and would thoroughly recommend it to all fans of psychological thrillers. I would definitely read more from this author.
A well-deserved 5 stars!
The Suspects is a gripping page turner, full of strong characters with dark pasts and secrets – all revealed at just the right moments – by talented thriller writer, Katharine Johnson. Five graduates in late 1980’s Bristol buy a house together, despite knowing little of each other outside of their new workplace. Tied together financially, they have no idea how they will be tested when they discover the body of a man in their basement after a drunken New Year’s Eve party. The Suspects works so well because the strength of its characters and the secrets they’re hiding. Their actions and reactions are believable. As the police close in on the truth, the tension experienced by narrator Emma, and the rising panic and mistrust felt within the group, is palpable. This is a book to be read in one or two great gulps. Addictive reading.