Slow-burn mystery exploring the dark underbelly of the minor celebrity lifestyle..
Lily Thane is a thirty-two-year-old actress best known for her twenty minute appearance in a low-budget British romcom as winsome orphan ‘Little Lucie’ at the age of four, and it’s clear that her star is waning, not that her mother and manager, “the momager”, is willing to give up on a dream that easily. When Lily bumps into an old stage school contemporary in Adam Harker who needs a red-carpet companion to whip up the media ahead of making a push for the big time, it seems like a win-win situation. Despite never particularly having liked Adam, there is something magnetic and dangerously alluring about him and so Lily agrees to the fauxmance and also signs a non-disclosure agreement. But troubled Adam has a penchant for drugs, a predilection for using people and a need to be in control, and things inevitably turn toxic. But as both their lives and careers move on, Lily and Adam are never too far apart and with a ringside seat to Adam’s death and growing suspicions about who wanted him out of the way, Lily turns detective.
Lily is a complex character who is far more vulnerable than she appears with more emotional depth than many of her contemporaries and her dry first-person narrative keeps the superficiality of the non-stop party lifestyle, and hedonistic antics that surround her, in perspective. With the bombshell revelation of Adam’s death so early on in the novel before then seeing it all play out, it makes for a gripping slow-burn of a mystery and I was surprised at how much I vied for Lily, all the while wanting to scream at her to get as far away as possible from the odious people around her! Cocksure Adam is a flawed character, an addict and a game playing master of manipulation with a goodie bag of drugs as big as his ego. The colourful supporting cast are all so well-drawn that I never had a problem keeping them distinct and include Lily’s cousin and serious actress, Dido, her snarky best-friend, Nina, and vacuous wealthy socialite, Talia.
Nothing about the tawdry world or largely shallow characters that occupy Adam and Lily’s world appealed to me in the slightest, yet despite this I found myself unable to set the book aside without knowing if Adam’s death was an accident or foul play. I was hugely impressed that Laura Vaughan managed to flesh her characters out, and conjure such a vivid picture of Adam’s fast-living circle and shady machinations, that it made for an unexpectedly complicated investigation, with numerous suspects and motives that blindsided me completely. A well-observed and well-written novel with a uneasy atmosphere throughout and an ultimately admirable protagonist in Lily, whom I found very sympathetic. My main criticism is that the ending of the novel felt rushed and would have benefitted from both being made clearer and also explored in a little more depth.
Lily is a complex character who is far more vulnerable than she appears with more emotional depth than many of her contemporaries and her dry first-person narrative keeps the superficiality of the non-stop party lifestyle, and hedonistic antics that surround her, in perspective. With the bombshell revelation of Adam’s death so early on in the novel before then seeing it all play out, it makes for a gripping slow-burn of a mystery and I was surprised at how much I vied for Lily, all the while wanting to scream at her to get as far away as possible from the odious people around her! Cocksure Adam is a flawed character, an addict and a game playing master of manipulation with a goodie bag of drugs as big as his ego. The colourful supporting cast are all so well-drawn that I never had a problem keeping them distinct and include Lily’s cousin and serious actress, Dido, her snarky best-friend, Nina, and vacuous wealthy socialite, Talia.
Nothing about the tawdry world or largely shallow characters that occupy Adam and Lily’s world appealed to me in the slightest, yet despite this I found myself unable to set the book aside without knowing if Adam’s death was an accident or foul play. I was hugely impressed that Laura Vaughan managed to flesh her characters out, and conjure such a vivid picture of Adam’s fast-living circle and shady machinations, that it made for an unexpectedly complicated investigation, with numerous suspects and motives that blindsided me completely. A well-observed and well-written novel with a uneasy atmosphere throughout and an ultimately admirable protagonist in Lily, whom I found very sympathetic. My main criticism is that the ending of the novel felt rushed and would have benefitted from both being made clearer and also explored in a little more depth.