Emma Bally has a nice life in her dilapidated chalet in Sanaan where she likes to spend her days skiing and lives with her little dog, Max, for company. But her world is thrown into confusion when she receives a summons to a will reading for her friend, Nicole, the terms being “turn up or get nothing”. Intrigued, (Emma’s occupation as an investigative journalist means that her interest is well and truly piqued), Emma heads off to Monaco where she attends the will reading and discovers that Nicole was not all that she seems or rather, that she was actually MUCH more than Emma had ever realised.
Along with her friend, Angela Rossi, Emma finds herself trying to get to the bottom of a mystery, posthumously suggested by Nicole and it involves the death of Emma’s mother which was deemed suicide – but was it?
We follow Emma as she delves into the past and uncovers details of a large web of deceit, leading her to question her own morality as well as that of others and this is all done with discussion with Angela over a lot of pastries and finger sandwiches.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It was, in my opinion, a good read for the most part, the premise behind it intriguing me and it proceeded to ask a lot of moral questions about humanity and our established moral codes as well as the power that one individual can have over another due to the knowledge they hold.
However, Chapter 17 was the stumbling block for me. Up until this point, I had been enjoying the deductions Emma was making and wondering what Anne-Marie’s angle was and what her true expectations of Emma were, Anne-Marie being a friend of Nicole’s as well as fellow beneficiary of the will and co-owner of Nicole’s bequeathed Marianne Foundation. I’d also been bemused by Max, the dog’s, asides and their purpose.
But the repetitive nature of Chapter 17 threw me out of the book and marred my reading. There were other details too, like the elevator in a dilapidated chalet, which didn’t ring true for me and whilst most of it kept me engaged, the latter pages meant that like a skier on a black run, I was on a downward slide.
A three star represents what I enjoyed about the book but it drifted irrevocably for me.
Rachel Rating:
This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read it as an ARC.
Scuffed Granny 