Judy's Review:

Ben Harper is a 30-year-old award-winning journalist who still lives in the small village just outside London (called Haddley, but it’s based on Putney) where a terrible double murder took place 20 years ago.

Two fourteen-year-old boys were brutally maimed and killed by two girls they were at school with. One of the victims was Ben’s older brother, Nick. Ten years after Nick’s murder, their mother killed herself.

Now on the tenth anniversary of her death, Ben is under pressure from his ambitious editor to write an insider piece about the most terrible times in his life. He resists but finds himself drawn into a renewed investigation when fresh developments throw dramatic new light onto what happened to his brother and his mother.

Richard's Review:

This absolutely excellent thriller is a terrific read.

Haddley, Ben’s tiny home town, is a great setting for a murder mystery, a place where everyone knows each other, gossip thrives, and dirty family secrets are carefully concealed beneath a veneer of suburban respectability and affluence.

The threads which connect the shocking double murder and the devastating death of Ben’s mother are intricate, sordid and deadly, and nothing is as it seems.

Ben Harper is a great character, decent, honest and charismatic.

We both loved this gripping debut by Robert Gold. Enjoy!