The Favour: The gripping new thriller from an author 'at the top of British psychological suspense writing' (Observer)

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The author’s writing was complex, poignant, an element of suspense, and the flow/pace was brilliantly done. Although I didn’t care for a lot of the characters, the vivid descriptions of the characters are very well done.

The Favour | Book by Nicci French | Official Publisher Page

Junior doctor Jude is on the cusp of marriage; after a night shift she finds that Liam, her ‘bad boy’ first boyfriend, whom she hasn’t seen since she left school, is waiting for her to ask a favour – and a very strange favour it is too. Imagine her surprise when she see's that it's Liam, her boyfriend for a summer when she was 18 years old, the one she has thought of often throughout the years wondering what happened to him. The main character is a doctor, but she makes one stupid decision after another, making it very difficult to like or understand her. As always, Nicci French has written a page turner but this story did not work for me on a psychological or emotional level.

Then we're introduced to Liam's housemates, an eccentric cast of characters, and Jude is mesmerized by these lunatics. Except things didn’t work out as planned and Liam is dead, and now Jude is in the middle of a murder investigation. He wants her to drive up to a remote cottage on the Norfolk coast, using his car and paying with his credit card, and then wait for him to arrive by train the following evening. I know as the novel progresses we do learn the reason as to why she helps him but even with this information I still think she should have walked away.

Nicci French Books | Waterstones Nicci French Books | Waterstones

I still liked her but groaned each time she entrenched herself more deeply into the world her former high school boyfriend and his very unorthodox group of friends lived.We get some insight into how smitten she was 11 years earlier but even she admits he was kinda dangerous and unpredictable.