The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath #NetGalley #AreYouGuilty?

The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath

Published by HarperCollins UK

Publication Date: 7 March 2019

Genre: Mystery & Thrillers

384 pages

Book Description:

You did nothing. That doesn’t mean you’re innocent.

On a night out, four friends witness a stranger in trouble. They decide to do nothing to help.

Later, a body washes up on the banks of the Thames – and the group realises that ignoring the woman has left blood on their hands.

But why did each of them refuse to step in? Why did none of them want to be noticed that night? Who is really responsible?

And is it possible that the victim was not really a stranger at all? 

My Review:

The first thing which strikes me after reading this book is how self-obsessed, manipulative and shallow people can be.  I did not like any one of the characters - even the one person amongst the group who had a shadow of a conscience was too weak to stand up to a group of people who even she knew she could not truly call friends.
This is a book which is really difficult to review without giving away huge spoilers. It is one which needs to be read with as open a mind as possible.  The setting in Dorset where the group goes for a long weekend is one of my favourite places in the UK so I felt I was able to picture the scene in my head.  The events which are related through the book however do not make for comfortable reading, and I felt the whole time I was questioning my own moral compass and asking myself what would I have done in the circumstances.

The group witnessed a crime in the vicinity of a music festival they had all attended earlier in the year, however nobody stepped up to report what they had seen.  The book runs through events before and after festival which are supposed to explain why each of them was reluctant to get involved to either stop the crime or report it.  Whether any of these reasons is truly enough to let someone escape justice and possibly go on to repeat what they have done is a tricky one.  A proper moral dilemma. However I wasn't invested in the story sufficiently to really care why they didn't get involved - they were all too interested in themselves to even care about the victim so why should I care about them?
I usually really enjoy dislikeable characters but this time there was definitely something I couldn't quite get to grips with to make the book work. I can't put my finger on what was missing, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me.

About the Author:

Melanie McGrath is a Romford-born English non-fiction writer and crime novelist.

Born in Romford, McGrath's parents moved several times during her childhood; to Basildon in Essex, then to a village in Germany, to Kent, then north to Lancashire, and south again to Buckinghamshire. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.
She won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1995 for her non fiction book Motel Nirvana , which examined the New Age movement, and detailed McGrath's travels around the American states of Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.
In recent years McGrath has written crime novels, including a trilogy set in the Arctic with Inuit detective Edie Kiglatuk, and the standalone thriller Give Me the Child . As a book reviewer and travel writer, she has written for The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent among other publications.
McGrath has taught creative writing at the universities of Roehampton University and North Carolina as well as at The Arvon Foundation. McGrath lives in London and on the Kent coast.

Social Media:

Twitter: @mcgrathmj

Website: https://melaniemcgrath.com/