A gunman and a child who’s lying
DAY ONE by Abigail Dean (Hemlock Press £16.99, 384pp)
THIS stunning thriller is almost too painful to read as it describes the consequences of a mass school shooting in the fictional town of Stonesmere in the lake District.
It is July and the eldest children in the primary school are taking part in the annual Day one performance, a production for the four-year-olds who will join in September. a gunman bursts in and kills two children on the stage, three members of the audience and six children and their teacher, ava Ward, who are hiding in the green room — before turning the gun on himself.
mrs Ward’s daughter martha is one of the first children interviewed by the media and tells them she witnessed the massacre, which turns out to be a lie. So begins one of the most hypnotic, deeply felt and genuinely moving stories told in a very long time.
Dean’s debut, Girl a, was an international hit and her second deserves to be one too.
WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA? by Dervla McTiernan
(HarperCollins £16.99, 336pp) THE talented mcTiernan has won a string of awards with her first five novels, and this sixth underlines her exceptional ability.
Simon and Nina are a young couple apparently deeply in love when they go for a weekend away at Simon’s parents’ family cabin in the woods of Vermont. Yet only Simon returns. He explains that Nina has dumped him for someone else and he left her in the cabin. But Nina never returns and the police investigate.
Nina’s parents demand the police do more, while Simon’s wealthy and powerful parents hire expensive lawyers and a public relations adviser to protect their son from the ever-increasing speculation that he is a murderer.
Sinuous and immaculately paced, there is a ferocious sting in the tail. Don’t miss it.
STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE by Lisa Gardner (Century £16.99, 416pp)
FaNS of the idiosyncratic missing person’s expert Frankie Elkins will need no encouragement to dive into her latest case, in which she is charged with finding the longlost sister of a female serial killer who is facing execution in just three weeks.
Her search takes her to a remote tropical atoll owned by the slightly sinister billionaire Sanders macmanus. She is forced to go undercover to see if the missing sister is indeed being held captive there, and is instructed never to reveal her true identity.
Written with Gardner’s typical pace and with a heroine it is impossible not to sympathise with, this is story-telling at its very best, a spectacular thrill-a-minute ride that never lets up for a second.