The Holiday
TM Logan
380 pages
Published in 2019
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The Holiday is a British domestic suspense thriller about a group of 40-something year old friends who gather in a luxury Italian villa for a dream holiday, which soon starts going horribly wrong. I got the paperback from a friend and was interested to discover that it was made into a TV mini-series last year. I’m rather sick of this genre, but thought that the Italian villa setting might make a change. I did get drawn into the mystery, in spite of the awful characters, but felt unsatisfied by the ending.
Kate has arranged a holiday to bring her family together with those of her three old university friends, but soon after arrival discovers signs that her husband has been having an affair with one of them. Wracked with jealousy and paranoia, she fails to notice that there’s more than one sociopath amongst them – and one of their party won’t survive the week…
I had read one of the author’s books previously (Lies) and struggled with it until the end, when I was blown away by the twist (which doesn’t happen to me often.) I found this one easy to read, but found most of the characters’ incessant whining – the women complain constantly about the heat (why did you book a summer holiday in Italy then), the children are constantly bored (because they are spoiled rotten) and the men drink themselves senseless to escape the melodrama. The reveal of what’s going on is a bit tortuous, but I didn’t see it coming, so 2.5 rounded up for that reason.
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