By: Dervla McTiernan
ISBN: 9781460760147
HarperCollins Publishers (2024)
The title of this novel also acts as a summary of the driving force in this compelling and thoughtful mystery.
Nina Fraser is young, beautiful, bright and happy. She has a loving family, an adoring boyfriend, and her life is just starting.
Then one day Nina doesn’t return from a weekend away with her boyfriend, Simon. He says they broke up and he returned alone, but there’s plenty about his story which doesn’t make sense. It’s not long before Nina’s family begins to entertain the darkest of suspicions: Simon has done something to Nina.
But Simon’s family is wealthy and influential. Simon can hide behind that wealth and what it buys: lawyers, publicists, the ability to dodge questions. Nina’s family turn to ever more desperate ways of trying to find Nina – or answers.
McTiernan is a fine writer of crime novels, and a fine observer of human nature. The result is a crime novel with a lot of emotional depth. McTiernan creates strong and nuanced characters, and then takes us deep into their emotional turmoil.
So far as the crime plot goes, most readers will see the major strands fairly early on. However, McTiernan creates just enough doubt to keep you unsure – do you really know what happened? Even when the reader has some answers, there’s a lot of residual tension around the question of who else will figure things out, and when and how.
The plot is relatively straightforward, and it’s not really a mystery, though definitely a crime. I found this unputdownable, but it was the tension around the characters and their discoveries which held me.
I particularly delighted in the portrayals of Nina’s mother, Leanne, and Simon’s mother Jamie. Both women have the same ultimate goal – to protect their child – but this shared goal puts them at odds. McTiernan skillfully has them mirroring each other in ways that encourage the reader to empathise with both. Neither are perfect, but most will feel some sympathy for both.
This is smoothly written in multiple voices. It gives us a sense that we know the situation far better than any character, but also builds tension as we see events through a different person’s eyes.
I flat out enjoyed this. It’s a really strong crime novel, but also a really strong portrayal of multiple characters in a horrifically challenging situation. The final pages will stay with me for some time.
You may be interested in my review of “The Murder Rule” by the same author:
Other Dreams, Other Lives 