The Cliff House - Chris Brookmyre

[Mister Hobgoblin]

It is rare for a book to be genuinely chilling, but The Cliff House manages it.

 

Seven women set out for a luxury hen weekend on a Scottish island, just the property manager and a chef to keep them company. Jen, the bride-to-be-, is the common link between the women; some have been friends since childhood and others have come into Jen's life much more recently. They all, it seems, bring secrets.

 

The plot is as cliched as it is improbable. A body is found, the women are trapped on the island with a killer amongst them, and as the day unfolds, so too do their secrets. One of their number, they are told, is not who she seems, But are any of them who they seem? It could be Murder on the Orient Express; it could be The Last of Sheila; it could be Ten Little Indians. Like the best in the Genre, the brilliance is in drip feeding the backstory while creating moments of shock, horror and revelation. It works if the reader is willing to go along for the ride and, presumably, falls down if the reader ponders too hard on the likelihood of it all. 

 

The women themselves are grotesque. Rich, spoilt, untrusting, selfish, lying, greedy, rude and manipulative. The novel is narrated in short sections, travelling with each of the women at various points. This is done well, both in order to create cliff-hangers, but also to generate an element of empathy through understanding some of the human thought processes behind unspeakably poor behaviour. My personal favourite was the rock star brought back down to earth but there are so many exquisite moments of karma for them all. 

 

The ending is perhaps a bit silly, but there is a point at which the good stuff has happened and Poirot/Miss Marple/whoever has to round up the survivors and explain it all over a stiff gin. It's a requirement, but The Cliff House, like all psychological thrillers, is about the journey rather than the destination. 

 

*****