I’ve always enjoyed books by this author (who previously wrote women’s fiction as Jenny Oliver) in fact I was even a character name in one of them! So I was very excited to hear that she’d changed genres and was writing a thriller as Jenny Knight – here’s the blurb:

“Five friends. One deadly secret.
Five old university friends gather on the eve of their flatmate’s memorial at a beautiful riverside house.
Host Caro is as perfect as always.
Shy, awkward Lily’s now a bestselling author.
Sports hero George loves suburban fatherhood.
Bad-boy Travis only gets his highs from meditation.
And gatecrasher Elle is still a troublemaker.
Estranged for years, they’re finally ready to reminisce over dry martinis and delicious food. But there’s more than that on the menu…
Because each guest is hiding a dark secret about their time at Oxford.
They’re all guilty of something. Is one of them guilty of murder?“

The book is set in two timelines –

‘now’ which is the night before a memorial is unveiled to a friend / frenemy / lover of the cast of characters at the dinner – 3 of whom are there by invitation of the host, Caro, and 1 who is a gatecrasher.

‘then’ which is when the same cast were all at University in Oxford and Henry was still alive.

None of the characters are particularly likeable in either timeline, to be honest, but you begin to understand why as the stories unfold and twist and turn. They were flatmates at Uni – but by circumstances rather than choice – so that throws up lots of differences and foibles that wouldn’t necessarily have happened if they’d chosen whom to live with.

Whilst I didn’t go to Oxford – the University flashbacks are very reminiscent of my uni times – and the different types of students you get! Similarly I didn’t row – but friends of my children do, and so the cut throat / competitive nature of getting in ‘the boat’ was written really well.

I’ve seen the book described as a modern day Agatha Christie – and I can completely agree with that, with all of the players in one room as the explanation for the stories evolve. It also reminded me of recent books by Lucy Foley which have a similar vibe of middle class mates meeting up somewhere and historic secrets being revealed.

I would say it’s a mystery rather than thriller – I really enjoyed it, and was keen to see how both timelines unfolded.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC – and the book was released YESTERDAY – so I’m not tempting you into something months before you can actually buy it (and this is no way just an excuse for the fact it’s taken me a few weeks to get round to writing my blog post, nope, not at all!!)