Tom Sullivan and his wife Rachel are having problems. It's not just the usual growing apart after more than a decade of marriage. Their son, Michael, was killed in a car crash some months before: he was driving his father's Audi and at sixteen wasn't legally entitled to drive. Not only did he kill himself when the car rammed into a tree, but he also killed his girlfriend, fifteen-year-old Fiona Connor. Tom can't think about Michael without a sense of shame and guilt. Rachel is broken, but she wants to forgive Michael. To give some space, Tom's moved out of the family home, but stresses to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Holly, that it is only a trial separation.
| A Window Breaks by C M Ewan | |
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| Category: Thrillers | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: So fast-paced you hardly have time to draw breath. A horrific story of how a family can be torn apart for no apparent reason. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 464/13h15m | Date: February 2020 |
| Publisher: Pan | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1529009675 | |
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Then there was the mugging in an alley as the family was leaving a restaurant. Holly was punched in the face and it was only the appearance of some of the restaurant staff that caused the attacker to run off. Tom finds it hard to avoid the thought that it was something more than a bungled mugging. When he confides in his boss, Lionel suggests that the family (and Buster the chocolate labrador) go to his lodge in Scotland for a break, which hopefully might allow them time and space to sort themselves out.
It sounds like a good idea, particularly when they see the 'lodge'. It's a state-of-the-art, no-expenses-spared, futuristic building with everything they could wish for. Security seems to be brilliant, so they can relax and try and piece themselves back together.
The nightmare begins when the lodge is broken into in the middle of the first night and it's obvious that the intention is to kill the family. Tom doesn't know who to trust: Rachel seems to know more than she's telling and there's a strange closeness between her and the member of Lionel's staff who welcomed them to the lodge.
I was very taken by Holly: she's mature for her years and a deep thinker, but I was less impressed by Tom, whose jealousy surfaces in circumstances where it should be the last thing on his mind and he's constantly examining his feelings. I wanted to shake him and tell him to get a grip! We do learn more about Michael as the book progresses: there are constant flashbacks to what happened on the night of his death (rather too many for my liking) which gradually build up a picture of what really happened. Suspend annoyance - it's a good story.
'Fast-paced' doesn't really begin to describe how quickly this book moves. Your nerves are constantly on edge and it's so emotionally charged that you find yourself trying to look over your shoulder whilst you're reading. Personally, I found it a little too much: I'd have been glad of the occasional chance to take a breath, but then I am a bit of a wuss. If you normally enjoy this level of charge them this could well be the perfect book for you.
C M Ewan is somewhat better known as Chris Ewan.
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