The Companion by Lesley Thomson

 

The Companion by Lesley Thomson.

Published 9th June 2022 by Aries, Head of Zeus.

From the cover:

In a grand old mansion in the middle of the Sussex countryside, seven people have seen more than they should... The new chilling thriller from Lesley Thomson.

James Ritchie was looking forward to a boys' day out with his son, Wilbur – even if he was a little late picking him up from the home of his ex-wife, Anna. Annoyed by his late arrival, and competing for their son's attention, Anna leaves the two of them to their day with the promise of a roast dinner when Wilbur returns.

But Anna will never see her family again. That afternoon, James and Wilbur are found dead, the victims of a double stabbing on the beach.

DI Toni Kemp, of Sussex police, must unravel a case which has shocked the county to its core. What she discovers will lead her to Blacklock House, a grand country mansion, long ago converted into flats. Here in the middle of nowhere, where a peacock struts the lawn, and a fountain plays intermittently, seven long-term residents have seen more than they should.

But this is a community who are good at keeping secrets...

***********

A man and his young son are the victims of a grisly double stabbing while out flying a kite on the beach. There appears to be no motive for their deaths, making it very hard for DI Toni Kemp and her Sussex police team to track down the perpetrator.

When another unsuspecting family become the next victims of the serial killer, found dead after a picnic on Deadman's Heath, DI Kemp's attention is drawn to Blacklock House, a former grand mansion that has been converted into flats. Now housing a small group of residents who seem to have plenty to hide, including the slightly peculiar twenty-five-year old Timothy Mew who has just taken on the job of companion to retired QC Rex Lomax.

Can DI Kemp get to the bottom of this perplexing case before the murderer strikes again?

The Companion is a literary crime thriller that begins with a shocking double murder and evolves into a left-of-field country house mystery, with all the sinister vibes you could possibly want.

The story starts with a grisly bang, and explodes into a number of intermingled threads around the lives of various local characters, gradually spreading to include the eccentric gaggle of residents at the creepy Blacklock House. There are essentially two sides to the tale, splitting between the personal relationships of the characters and the murder plot at hand, which are connected through a bevy of subplots.

A lot of characters come at you very quickly, and I did find it tricky to navigate through them at first, as there are so many aspects of their personal stories that link everything together. However, you soon get into the rhythm of where Lesley Thomson is going with this, and get a handle on how they all fit into the intricately wrought plotlines that need to be hammered out before the truth becomes clear, and it provides her with a wealth of red herrings to mix things up nicely. 

What really draws you in is Blacklock House itself and the odd collection of residents that live there, ranging from the endearingly batty to the out-and-out menacing, and I can see that Thomson has had a field day coming up with all their perverse traits. Their encounters spill out into tense, and often blistering, verbal encounters that are darkly entertaining to read. If ever there was a cast of suspicious characters under one eerie roof then this lot fit the bill perfectly - and they definitely keep you guessing about their involvement in the macabre goings on in the neighbourhood.

My favourite character in this book was Freddy, and I loved her friendship with DI Kemp, who has some very quirky traits of her own it seems. I really enjoyed how Freddy ties many threads of the story together, and some of the most humorous parts of the book stem from her role in the tale - the heart warming ones too.

I think it's fair to say that this is a book that you need to give your full attention to, but if you fancy a cleverly conceived crime story that combines a touch of Elly Griffiths by way of a literary Knives Out, then this is an intriguing choice for your reading pile. It has some interesting observations on loneliness to ponder too.

The Companion is available to buy now in hardcover and ebook formats.

Thank you to Head of Zeus and Ransom PR for sending me a hardcover copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Lesley Thomson’s first novel Seven Miles From Sydney, 1987 was one of London’s City Limit’s Books of that year. A Kind of Vanishing won The People’s Book Prize. The Detective’s Daughter series has sold over 850K copies. The Sunday Times said of The Distant Dead, 2021, ‘Lesley Thomson can make your flesh creep at will. Her sense of place, during the Blitz or in the present, is remarkable.’ The Companion is Lesley’s latest novel. 

Lesley lives in Sussex with her partner and dog.