Published by Storm Publishing
Publication Date: 26th July 2024
Book Description:
A body is floating face down in the middle of the infinity pool.
For a second I think I’m imagining it. My head is throbbing as I pull my sunglasses down over my eyes. It’s not even 8 a.m. and the blazing Tuscan sunshine is already stifling.
Flashes of last night play over in my mind. The spiteful words hurled across the table. The ruined meal. The endless glasses of crisp white wine. My daughter watching my every move. Tears choke my throat. This beautiful villa was the only good thing that came out of my painful divorce. I fix my eyes on the gently swaying cypress trees as I try to calm my breathing.
A police siren pierces the tranquillity and I collapse onto a wicker chair. I must get my story straight fast. But one question plays over in my mind without an answer.
What really happened last night?
My Thoughts:
This is the first book I've read by this author and while I enjoyed it to a point I felt the characters lacked a certain something that I can't quite put my finger on. The setting of the villa in Tuscany and how Cerys came to be living there with her daughter was described very well. However the constant theme throughout the book is her addiction to alcohol. I understand that this is all consuming for a person, and how it affects the whole family but I felt it overshadowed the subject of the book: the fact that there's an actual body floating in the infinity pool one morning.
There are multiple suspects and credible motives for each of those on the list, from the son staying in the villa who has a couple of reasons why he could have committed murder, to the gardener and maintenance guy Lorenzo who has a very weak back story which could have been developed far more interestingly in my opinion. Cerys herself is a distinct possibility, or as the dishy detective suggests maybe it was a burglary gone wrong. Lucia, the maid who the villa is named after, also has her motives. But despite all the speculation and scene setting involved, I don't think there was a chapter that went by without the mention of alcohol in some guise or another which really became slightly tedious towards the end, and quite a distraction from a murder investigation. There are a couple of twists along the way, but nothing that properly shocked me unfortunately. My favourite characters were Charlie and Lowri who stood out from the cast and who I was most invested in.
I feel this would be a good holiday read when you don't want to expend too much effort working out whodunnit whilst lying by the pool, but if you want a gripping thriller then this one just lacks that feeling of any substantial depth to the characters and plot.
My thanks to the publisher Storm Publishing for the opportunity to read this book via Netgalley prior to publication. All opinions here are my own.
About the Author:
Simon is a million selling crime novelist. His first book, 'The Snowdonia Killings', was released in January 2020 and soon became an Amazon Bestseller, reaching No 1 in the Amazon UK Chart and selling over 400,000 copies. His seventeen subsequent novels in the DI Ruth Hunter Crime Thriller Series have all been Amazon Best Sellers and many have hit the top of the UK Digital Chart. He has sold over 2 million books since 2020.
The Ruth Hunter Snowdonia books are currently in development as a television series to be filmed on location in North Wales in 2024.
SImon also has a very successful crime series set on Anglesey with Harper Collins (Avon). 'The Dark Tide', the first of the series, was the highest ever selling Waterstones' Welsh Book of the Month.
Simon McCleave was originally born in South London. When leaving University, he worked in television and film development. He was a Script Editor at the BBC, a producer at Channel 4 before working as a Story Analyst in Los Angeles. He worked on films such as 'The Full Monty' and television series such as the BBC Crime Drama 'Between The Lines'.
Simon then became a script writer for television and film. He wrote on series such as Silent Witness, Murder In Suburbia, Teachers, Attachments, The Bill, Eastenders and many more. His film, 'Out of the Game' for Channel 4 was critically acclaimed - 'An unflinching portrayal of male friendship.' (Time Out)
Simon lives in North Wales with his wife and two children.
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