This is a good debut from Catherine Hunt, the tension grows chapter by chapter until the inevitable dénouement. That being said, it did take me a good few chapters to get into. Laura Maxwell took a while to gel with me (or should that be I took a while to gel with her). Perhaps it was because the action started on the very first page, so it was hard to empathise with someone I knew nothing about.
The "action" scenes are well written, but I would have preferred the first one to be just that, rather than a mix with hypothesis by Laura which just interrupted it for me.
The characters are developed well, each evoking a very definite response, from the distraught Mary Hakumi to the quite sleazy Marcus Morrison. Even Laura's horse, Valentine, evoked my compassion!
As always I try not to give any spoilers, but suffice to say things didn't become clear until Hunt opened the plot like a blossoming flower.
I was a bit unsure about the flashback to 1997; not that it was at all irrelevant, just that once events of the year were introduced it seemed to sort of skip through various timeframes. It just made me keep flipping back to check where I was, which was irritating.
I enjoyed this book, certainly more as I go further into it.
It's yet another one with "If you liked The Girl on The Train" emblazoned on the front cover. I certainly didn't even think to compare it to that novel, and I'm not sure I could now I've finished it either. Please go into it as a good read on its own terms.
