Sharon Bolton attracted attention with her fabulously-plotted stand-alines, such as Sacrifice and Awakening, and more recently with her Lacey Flint series (A Dark and Twisted Tide). She returns with a new stand-alone, LITTLE BLACK LIES, as well done as her others and not to be missed.
Bolton takes readers to the remote wilds of the Falkland Islands, off South America’s southeast coast, where remnants of the UK’s conflict with Argentina still resonate, and which prove an attractive draw for former soldier Callum Murray. The islands are home to Catrin Quinn, nature conservationist, a woman swallowed up in grief after the death of her two young sons, and harboring a terrible secret she plans to act on.
They are also home to Rachel, her childhood friend, who Catrin holds responsible for their deaths. And to Ben, Catrin’s ex-husband, who has moved on in to remarry and has a new child with his second wife. Into this mix are the murmurs of of two missing children whose bodies have never been found. And then a third child goes missing, and it becomes impossible to ignore that there is a killer in their midst.
Told in sections from the viewpoints of Catrin, Callum and Rachel, the readers sees different parts of the story from each view, as what has happened comes together to form a vivid whole. There are lies and untruths told, as the tensions rises and Catrin finds herself the object of people’s suspicions. Each character’s voice is compelling and individual as the various secrets that have held come tumbling out in ways that the reader can’t possibly anticipate.
The setting adds to the story, a place of wild and natural beauty, of fierce and unexplained natural happenings that augment the troubles that fall to these people. It is a well-told story of the ways people can damage each other, deliberately and even without meaning to–and of the terror parents feel when their child is missing.
Publishers Weekly says: “This brilliantly plotted thriller, filled with lies and betrayals, builds to an unexpected, mesmerizing ending.”
Auntie M quite agrees~
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 