The Long Weekend

The Long Weekend is the seventh novel by best-selling British author, Gilly Macmillan. Set in the Northumbria moors and in Bristol, Macmillan quickly lines up all the requisite ingredients for a deliciously dark thriller: a holiday let in a remote and rugged location inaccessible to guest vehicles; no mobile phone coverage; three husbands delayed a day by unforeseen(?) commitments; foul, foul weather just starting to roll in; and one of the hosting couple, harbouring a resentment of guests, recently diagnosed with dementia.

Add in: one wife with a serious drinking problem, anxious about the new baby she's left behind; one wife with a mysterious agenda involving a Neolithic burial mound; and one wife with deep insecurity issues. And then greet the arriving guests with a parcel: a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a note that ends "By the time you read this, I'll have killed one of your husbands".

The three women are on the edges of a close-knit group, accessories to the core, not exactly friends, and each is battling with her own demons. They are complex characters, and their inner monologues are a mess of worries and second-guessing and denial.

The narrative is carried by several voices, one of those being the (initially) anonymous person who is orchestrating the whole situation. Certain scenes in this strand are blackly funny, but then it soon gets decidedly creepy. Within the first third of the story, Macmillan has already thrown in so many twists that it would be wise to pre-book a chiropractic appointment before starting the book, because that doesn't let up.

The build up to the nail-biting climax of this tightly-plotted thriller is so intense, the book is impossible to put down. This is Gilly Macmillan at her brilliant best.