The Fall by Gilly Macmillan

The Fall by Gilly Macmillan
Buy The Fall by Gilly Macmillan at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: Very few people could have killed Tom Booth but Gilly Macmillan keeps the tension high right to the end. Highly recommended.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 464	Date: May 2023
Publisher: Century
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1529135381
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Nicole Booth had spent the morning at the county fair before she returned home. There was no sign of her husband but opera was playing on the state-of-the-art music system installed in The Glass Barn. They'd not been in the architect-designed house on Lancaut Peninsula for long and were still getting used to all the high-tech systems Tom had insisted upon. Some of them fought with each other and didn't work as reliably as they should. It had all come about through a ten-million-pound lottery win and they were still getting used to having that sort of money, too. Eventually, Nicole found Tom dead in the swimming pool with a wound to his head.

Nicole is convinced that it must be a dreadful accident and she's supported in this by Sasha Dempsey and Olly Palmer who live in the Manor House next door. Their housekeeper, Kitty, lives in the coach house and no other homes are on the peninsula. If this wasn't an accident, then who could have been responsible? There might be some hints in what went on five years ago when Anna Creed lived in the Manor House. Her husband, Nick, had recently died of cancer and she kept a journal. As the story of what's happening now progresses, we read excerpts from the journal.

You empathise with Tom and Nicole straight away. Before their big win, they'd lived simple, careful lives in Swindon and - in some ways, they're doing the same thing now, only with a lot more money. Nicole used to be the administrative manager at a firm of solicitors that specialised in conveyancing: now she concentrates on keeping the house as it ought to be. Tom was a mechanic: now he drives a Maserati. The money has upset old friends, particularly Patrick. They gave him a substantial sum of money so that he could buy a flat: within a few weeks, he was back, demanding more and became threatening when it was refused. To be honest, life at Lancaut was a bit lonely, particularly for Tom.

It's almost a locked-room mystery: there are remarkably few people who could have killed Tom but Gilly Macmillan keeps the tension ramped up high to the very last pages and I really couldn't stop turning them. I meant to read the book over a week but finished it in less than twenty-four hours. The characters are superbly observed and even the best of them have their flaws. It's a real cracker and I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

I first encountered Gilly Macmillan when I read The Nanny, then followed it up with The Long Weekend.

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