This book starts in the thick of the action, immediately drawing you in and encouraging you to read on. Within the first few chapters the author establishes, very confidently and clearly, the two main characters, Clemence and Alastair who develop a clever and sometimes amusing, relationship.
Trying to regain his memory and piece together his life becomes a novel within a novel as the two read a seemingly autobiographic manuscript they find back at the cottage. The reader is taken back to Alastair's life as a young man at University and the relationships he develops there which result in long reaching consequences. A truly tangled web of deceit is woven involving love lost, money and murder.
At first the plot seems clear, the reader is being told the true story via the novel, but several elements do not quite make sense and Clemence is not convinced things are as straightforward as the book suggests, and indeed they aren't. Thus you are taken on a blind excursion of discovery with the characters to find out just what piece of vital evidence has been taken away and why and by whom, which is when matters start to get a little bit dark ...
The use of the environmental setting, dark and brooding Scotland in winter, is the perfect backdrop for the tone of the novel, as in looks can be deceiving. The beauty of Scotland can draw you in but be lethal if not handled correctly. Well written, structured and paced this novel is gripping and enticing. I had my suspicions about half way through of what may happen at the end and although it did there was also so much I did not see coming! I have to say, the final two pages of the novel were brilliant and I loved what the author has done - it certainly made me smile.
I will most certainly be reading more from Michael Ridpath.
Trying to regain his memory and piece together his life becomes a novel within a novel as the two read a seemingly autobiographic manuscript they find back at the cottage. The reader is taken back to Alastair's life as a young man at University and the relationships he develops there which result in long reaching consequences. A truly tangled web of deceit is woven involving love lost, money and murder.
At first the plot seems clear, the reader is being told the true story via the novel, but several elements do not quite make sense and Clemence is not convinced things are as straightforward as the book suggests, and indeed they aren't. Thus you are taken on a blind excursion of discovery with the characters to find out just what piece of vital evidence has been taken away and why and by whom, which is when matters start to get a little bit dark ...
The use of the environmental setting, dark and brooding Scotland in winter, is the perfect backdrop for the tone of the novel, as in looks can be deceiving. The beauty of Scotland can draw you in but be lethal if not handled correctly. Well written, structured and paced this novel is gripping and enticing. I had my suspicions about half way through of what may happen at the end and although it did there was also so much I did not see coming! I have to say, the final two pages of the novel were brilliant and I loved what the author has done - it certainly made me smile.
I will most certainly be reading more from Michael Ridpath.