Many thanks to NetGalley and publisher Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book prior to publication.
Expected: 26 March 2020
Three brothers are at the funeral. One lies in the coffin.
Will, Brian and Luke grow up competing for their mother's unequal love. As men, the competition continues - for status, money, fame, women... They each betray each other, over and over, until one of them is dead.
But which brother killed him?
The Review
Three brothers are at the funeral but one lies in the coffin. They betray each other, over and over, until one of them is murdered but which one? From that blurb, I was expecting a psychological thriller with lots of twists and trying to work out who had killed who. However, that's not really what this turned out to be.
It started that way with the funeral, but then it turned into more of a dark family drama following the lives of each brother as they inflicted multiple cruelties on one another through childhood and into adulthood and the present day. The biggest cruelty of all was obviously one of their death's but during the telling the mystery of the murder sadly became almost forgotten - disappointingly there were no clues, suggestions or twists and turns to untangle along the way.
The book is essentially in four parts; Will's story, Brian's story and Luke's story followed by present day events. However, the stories are not only not chronological but also don't follow any kind of pattern with chapters switching to a different random year in logical order. It's all credit to the skill and talent of author that this actually even works although it is definitely a little confusing initially until you get to grips with it and the story and characters.
Liz Nugent also has a real gift for character development, creating three extremely complex personalities full of both light and dark. Unfortunately, however, I didn't actually like any of them and therefore even care who got murdered. At first I thought it was the all-male cast but in reality it was the fact that between them the brothers possess pretty much every negative character trait possible from sexism, abusiveness, manipulativeness, meanness, selfishness, and obessiveness. Perhaps it's karma but these truly horrible characters experience a plethora of hard-hitting life situations including rape, addiction and mental ill health which altogether makes for rather depressing, dark and shocking reading.
So, despite me wanting to read this award-winning author for ages, disappointingly this just really wasn't for me. It really is best enjoyed as a dark humour and not a psychological thriller - which is what I was expecting/hoping for.
The author
Follow @lizzienugent or find out more at www.liznugent.ie
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