Alex Marwood - The Darkest Secret

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A gripping, rewarding read

I thought this was a good, involving book.  It is billed as a thriller and there is certainly a building atmosphere of tension and a need to find out what happened, but it is also a very good novel of character and social observation.  The premise is pretty well-worn: in 2004 Coco, a three-year-old girl goes missing from a house where several wealthy families have gathered to celebrate the birthday of Sean Jackson, a wealthy property developer and father of the girl.  It becomes clear early on that she is never found, and when Sean dies in the present day (2016) people gather and we learn what has become of those involved.  It is very well done, though, and I found it very gripping.

The story is intercut between the time of Coco's disappearance and the present day.  The 2004 story is in the third person, from various characters' points of view and the present day narrative is first person by Mila, Sean's daughter who was a stroppy teenager at the time of Coco's disappearance.  This took me a little while to get used to, but became very effective.  Alex Marwood writes well and creates very believable characters, I thought.  Be warned - it is hard to find anyone to like here, but they are all very well drawn and there are a few redemptive aspects to the present day story.  I found the narrative drew me in very well and I became thoroughly gripped by it.

A great strength of this book is Marwood's insight into her characters and into wider social developments.  It is difficult to give much detail without giving away more than I would have wanted to know before starting, but as a small example, writing of a redeveloped Queen Anne house, she says, "It's as old as the trees around it, this house, but Sean has stripped it of its antiquity and made it horribly, painfully perfect…  Everything gleams, the way it does in Disneyland."  There are lots of small but penetrating observations like this throughout the book which really add to our understanding both of the characters and of the world they live in. 

A friend read this before I did and absolutely hated it, so I came to it expecting to dislike it, too.  Against my expectations, I thought it was a rewarding, gripping novel.  Don't expect a comfortable read – it's mainly horrible people behaving appallingly – but it's a very rewarding one.  Recommended.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)