Way too many red herrings! The ending though was good.

Thank you to GoodReads for my review. ( )

An exclusive Scottish Island retreat is utilised for a hen party for old and new friends of a bride-to-be. Apart from their host and the chef they’ve hired for the weekend then the seven women should be alone and out of touch from the outside world for 72 hours. Seems like a good idea at the time but when a body is discovered and another member of their party is kidnapped they may have wished they’d stayed at home. Especially when they receive the ransom video saying that the kidnapped member will die unless a terrible secret is revealed because each of them has a secret they’d rather not be known. They must each decide if it’s worth letting someone die to keep it.

The last solo Brookmyre book that I read wasn’t his best and this one continues the trend (does 2 books constitute a trend?) in downward quality. Even though the characters are well drawn I just couldn’t care if they all made it off the island or not by the end of the book. The secrets are revealed slowly as the tale unfolds with alternating viewpoints and this may be some of the problem I had with the book. It’s sometimes easy to forget who’s who so there’s no real investment. The story itself is not a bad one but having read all his previous books I know the author can do better. ( )

This was another group of 'people with secrets' cut off on a remote island (I am never going to stay on a remote island) with a murderer. I found there were slightly too many women for me to focus on (I kept forgetting who Nicolette was), and the frequent shifts in perspective were frustrating and distracting. Some of their secrets seemed a bit inconsequential, and others so extreme that the way they were all forgiven and forgotten at the end was implausible. I saw most (but not all) of the twists coming, although I am not sure if that was due to my superior skills of perception or the author's skill at seeding clues. I feel sorry for Jen's fiance... ( )

It kept my interest, and I enjoyed the narration. I'll read more from this author ( )