The premise of this novel is intriguing. How far would you go to protect your daughter if she was suspected of murder?
Stella has recently turned 18. She works at H&M and is planning a trip to Asia when she has saved enough money. She is part of a very normal family – her father is a pastor, and her mother is a lawyer. They are a ‘perfectly ordinary family’, who would eat takeaways in front of TV and enjoy lunch at the local shopping centre. But then they hear of a brutal murder in their town, and next minute the police are saying Stella is in jail, suspected of the murder. To make matters worse, the parents don’t know her whereabouts the night the murder happened – but they do know she came home late, and then there is the question about the bloodied top hastily put into the laundry.
The father believes his daughter has been framed, the mother knows that her daughter is hiding something. As the police investigation continues, the reader learns about their family life before this point and it becomes clear that something has gone seriously wrong. But is Stella guilty of murder, or is something else going on here?
This is a suspenseful read, but also one that will get you thinking about loyalty to family members and what you might do in a similar situation. Tension is added with the narrative switching from the three different point of views – first the father’s point of view, then the daughter, and finally the mother – each of them holding a unique viewpoint on the storyline.
Macmillan Publishers