Review by Booklist Review
Was it a push or a punch that night in Chrissy's pub? Does it matter? Robbie is dead, and his best friend, Leo, has gone to prison for manslaughter. Their mothers were also best friends, but Robbie's mother Alice is crazed by vengeance and turns on Chrissy, Leo's mum. Actually, the whole of Cromley, their small Derbyshire town, turns on her. Alice has formed a committee to buy the pub and ban Chrissy from it. Chrissy has remained in Cromley waiting for Leo's release two years later, although some readers may wonder why. No one wants him to come back. When he is released on an early parole, she goes to pick him up, but he has vanished. The police think he is on the run in a stolen car, and the attacks on Chrissy become more visceral. Many secrets and lies unfold in this emotionally charged tale, "lies that even the village gossips would never suspect." Cooper weaves an extremely tangled web, but all is resolved in a perilous confrontation atop a viaduct. Her fans will enjoy this.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This gloomy standalone from Cooper (The Couple in the Photo) centers on the strained relationship between English pub owner Chrissy Dean and her former best friend, Alice Lowe. On New Year's Eve 2021, Chrissy's 20-something son, Leo, accidentally kills his best friend--Alice's son, Robbie--during a bar fight in the sleepy village of Cromley. Leo is convicted of involuntary manslaughter and Chrissy is forced to sell her pub. Two years later, Leo is granted early parole, but several villagers, including Alice, bully Chrissy into leaving Cromley with Leo in tow. When Chrissy arrives at the prison to collect Leo, however, her son is nowhere to be found. As rumors circulate about his whereabouts, Chrissy learns from his cellmates that a woman matching Alice's description visited him weeks before his release and left him visibly upset. Meanwhile, Alice buys Chrissy's pub and sets about renovating it, relying on the marketing expertise of Georgie Fallows, an overenthusiastic newcomer from London whose eagerness conceals sinister motives. Though certain key scenes play out predictably, Cooper keeps readers on the hook through to the satisfying, if abrupt, conclusion. There's enough here to gratify thriller fans. Agent: Hellie Ogden, WME. (Dec.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Cooper's latest thriller (after The Couple in the Photo) gets off to a slow start. Alice and Chrissy have been best friends for years, and their sons are also best friends. Chrissy's son Leo and Alice's son Robbie play music together in the pub that Chrissy owns in their small English village, until the fateful night when they get into a fight. In a freak accident, Leo punches Robbie, landing a blow that kills him. Leo is convicted of manslaughter and goes to prison while the village shuns Chrissy, a widow. As Leo's release date approaches, a mysterious woman moves to town and befriends Alice. When Chrissy goes to pick Leo up, she learns that he's already gone, and no one knows where he is. Eventually, secrets start to come out, further complicating these relationships and turning the story of Leo gone missing into something much darker. The story is told from disparate viewpoints, offering tantalizing misdirection. VERDICT Readers who like the slow burn of a mystery will enjoy this atmospheric thriller. Recommend to fans of Tana French or Kate Morton.--Stacy Alesi
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Mothers and sons are mired in a quicksand of deception in this tale of psychological suspense set in rural England. The title of Cooper's fourth novel appears to give a nod to happy families ensconced in idyllic relationships, but it quickly becomes apparent that it's just another of the book's intriguing misdirections. Cooper builds the scaffolding of this secret-packed novel on a harrowing event in which either "a push or a punch" during a scuffle in a pub leaves a young man dead and another sent to prison. Left to pick up the pieces following this tragedy are the men's mothers. Chrissy Dean and Alice Lowe, once the closest of friends, are now irrevocably estranged--yet always on each other's minds. Alice lost her son, Robbie, and she's leading a campaign to oust Chrissy from the insulated village of Cromley. What Robbie and Chrissy's son, Leo, fought over is one of the mysteries running through the book, and the answer becomes more urgent when Leo is paroled and immediately goes missing. Into this already compelling storyline, Cooper drops other plot-driving grenades: Who is Georgie Fallows, a village newcomer who immediately embeds herself in the Deans' and Lowes' lives? What secrets is Alice's brother, Peter, hiding, and what hold does an older inmate have over Leo during his time in prison? As the race to find Leo pushes forward, the snowballing secrets strangling the two families begin to unravel. In a vertigo-inducing denouement of Hitchcockian proportions, "a push or a punch" seems to come full circle. Cooper, with her keen understanding of family dynamics, pushes her characters and her readers to wonder how far they would go to protect themselves and their children. This pitch-perfect story about families and secrets starts with a punch and ends with a bang. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
