Amy Myers is known for her short stories and historical novels featuring Victorian chef Auguste Didier and chimney sweep Tom Wasp. Her contemporary series feature ex-cop Peter Marsh and Daughter and classic car detective Jack Colby, and she is currently working on a new series starring Cara Shelley who runs a café in the grounds of stately home Tanton Towers.
Website: www.amymyers.net
This, I knew as I finished page 2, is a novel I’m going to enjoy. Understatement. It proved to be superb. The Murder Game, the second in Rachel Abbott’s best-selling Stephanie King series, follows on from her earlier sleuth DI Tom Douglas novels which established her as a queen of psychological thriller writing.
The prologue introduces narrator Jemma Hudson and her husband Matt as they steel themselves to join friends for a very special dinner – just as they had a year ago with the same friends. The dinner – and the carefully crafted game that goes with it – is taking place at Polskirrin on the Cornish cliffs, the home of their host and friend Lucas Jarrett. But there are two major differences to the earlier gathering. Last year they were present to celebrate Lucas’s wedding, but no wedding took place. Now the reason for the dinner is far different. The enigmatic Alex is no longer with them and this is the anniversary of her death.
Enter Detective Sergeant Stephanie King and her superior Detective Inspector Angus Brodie – Gus to Stephanie in their private lives. They too have not forgotten the events of last year as they grapple with the nightmarish complexities of what is happening at Polskirrin.
The Murder Game is spell-binding, a suspense thriller combined with whodunnit in which the author has skilfully kept the police investigation low-key to allow the game to be played to the end by those who were present on Lucas’s tragic wedding day. Magnificent. More please, Rachel.
