The Only Suspect: A 'twisting, seductive, ingenious' thriller from the bestselling author of The Other Passenger

The Only Suspect is the sixteenth novel by British author, Louise Candlish. When his wife's activist group succeeds in their campaign to get a local walking trail reopened, Alex Parker gets nervous. Even though he and Beth have only lived in Silver Vale for ten years, he knows a lot more than he's letting on about the murder that happened twenty-five years earlier, and he's worried what might be unearthed if someone starts digging. Avoiding having his photo appear in the media is also a priority.

Adding to his disquiet, Beth has taken pity on an acquaintance, recently dumped by the man who got her pregnant, driven out of her job, and homeless, and invited her to stay. Alex is not at all convinced that Zara Lloyd's predicament is genuine, and wonders what her true agenda might be. Or is that just his paranoia talking?

Back in 1995, Rick Ward was working in London as an auditor when he met Marina and fell head over heels. But Marina wasn't entirely truthful about her situation, at first. Eventually, she revealed that she was married to a controlling man, Drew Stanley, and their luxury home in Silver Vale was virtually her prison.

When he spots her bruises, Rick is determined to save Marina from her brute of a husband, and he cooks up a plan to which she eventually agrees. But things don't go quite as he had hoped: instead of hiding out with his beloved, he's trying to stay under the radar, wanted by the police.

Once again, Candlish gives the reader a tightly-plotted tale with plenty of red herrings and distractions that keep the reader guessing right up to the final, fantastic twist and reveal. Her setting and era are perfectly rendered, and her characters recall people we all meet in everyday life, even if many of them are not at all what they first seem to be. This is excellent slow-burn British crime fiction.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia.