Portobello Book Blog

My last review of the year and my goodness what a cracker this book was. So much so, that I’m going to go and amend my Top Reads list for this quarter to include it. I bought this earlier in the year but saved it for now as I knew it was set around New Year.

About the book

On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests.

His lakeside holiday homes are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbours. This will be the party to end all parties.

But not everyone is there to celebrate. By midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.

On New Year’s Day, DC Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects.

The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbours, friends and family – and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.

With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead . . . but who finally killed him.

In a village with this many secrets, a murder is just the beginning.

My Thoughts

First of all, I have to say that I really liked Ffion. She wasn’t your typical world weary detective. She was feisty and independent, and very relatable.

The story is told from several different points of view. It’s mainly Ffion and her English counterpart Leo who lead the narrative. They are somewhat reluctant partners for reasons you’ll discover early in the book. We also hear from the victim in the hours leading up to his death and many other residents of The Shore development and the community of Cwm Coed. This partly fills in the details of what the police are uncovering in their investigation but also tells us much about the lead up to the murder. The structure of the book was incredibly clever!

There were so many possible suspects for the murder, so many clues, so many red herrings. Lots of people had reasons to vehemently dislike the victim and a possible motive for his murder. Everyone, it seems, had secrets or something to hide, and that included Ffion. As Leo wondered “is anyone at The Shore who they appear to be?”

In previous books, Claire Mackintosh has proved herself to be queen of the plot twist and she certainly took me by surprise several times throughout this book. I literally gasped out loud at some points! It was gripping, clever and quite funny at times. I thoroughly enjoyed DC Ffion Morgan’s first outing and am looking forward to the next one.

About the Author

With over 2 million copies of her books sold worldwide, number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of I Let You Go, which was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It also won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2016. Both Clare’s second and third novels, I See You and Let Me Lie, were number one Sunday Times bestsellers. Her first three thrillers were selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club, and together have been translated into forty languages. After the End was published in 2019 and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, and in 2021 Hostage flew straight into the top ten. Together, her books have spent more than sixty weeks in The Sunday Times bestseller lists.

Clare is patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity based at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, which supports parents experiencing high-risk or difficult pregnancies. She lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.

* * *

For more information visit Clare’s website http://www.claremackintosh.com or find her at http://www.facebook.com/ClareMackWrites or on Twitter @ClareMackint0sh #ILetYouGo #ISeeYou #LetMeLie #AftertheEnd