Grist Mill Road by Christopher J. Yates was a very dark and disturbing story. It stared with three youngsters in the wood and a horrific scene of torture. We then learn about those peoples lives 26 years later. I found this book very confusing and did not enjoy it because of this. I would like to thank NetGalley and Headline for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Grist Mill Road is an edgy thriller with unexpected twists. Going back and forth between 1982 and 2008, this is a three person story about events that occurred in 1982, how it shaped the lives going forward of the three narrators and where their lives are when we catch up with them in 2008. It is an interesting book and I would like to read more from this author. Thank you to NetGalley, Headline and Mr Yates for an advance copy of this book for review.

3.5 stars

What a tangled web three people can weave.
Told over two timelines,1982 and 2008,the lives of Hannah,Patrick and Matthew are all changed in dramatic ways as their own actions shape everyone's future .
It felt like a race between Patrick becoming completely unhinged and the truth being revealed in a letter written by Matthew leaving us in no doubt that nobody was innocent.
Interesting read.

I tried to like this book but it just didn't happen for me.

In 1982 three youngsters are out for the day, on their bikes, playing like most children did. They are just on that cusp between being children & seeing playing games as beneath them. Hannah gets tied to a tree and shot with a BB gun by Matthew. Patrick doesn't try to stop it. This is quite a gruesome opening to the book and is described in detached detail. A parallel thread runs in which Patrick seems to spend an inordinate amount of time cooking & blogging on the subject. We are given the details of that day in 1982 from the point of view of each of the three characters intertwined with the thread of their lives 26 years later.

So what went wrong for me? I found that I just didn't care about the characters. Even with the description of Hannah's shooting in the opening chapter I just didn't feel involved. I found the modern thread quite boring & was getting a bit fed up once we see the shooting event for the third time from a different point of view. I never felt involved with the characters & struggled to care about what happened to them. There are some secrets - quite major secrets - but for some reason I just didn't engage. I think I can just conclude that I didn't gel with the writing style.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

I got a free ARC from net galley of this book. It started off with good pace and a story that made you wonder what was going on. But having read the story from Patricks' point of view, then we got it from Hannahs' and then from Matthews'. By the time we got to Matthew's point of view, I had quit caring about what happened and really could have just given up. Having got to the end of the book (and realising during Hannahs point of view what was going on) I really wish I had given up much earlier, shame as the first part of the story was good. I also didn't like the way it was told from each persons point of view, and sometimes I would forget who was telling the story (which was a bit confusing).

This book is seen through the eyes of the 3 main characters; Matthew, Patrick/Patch/Tricky and Hannah. It does fee like a long book at times but you'll be turning the pages to find out what happened all those years ago and why it happened. My feelings for each character changed as the book went on but I loved how each character developed. I was not expecting the different secrets that each character had kept over the years.

Beware if you're sensitive to violence as this book's opening chapter took so much visceral delight in describing a girl being shot fifty times, once in the eye, that it put me right off - and that's a first as I'm not usually a squeamish reader. Combine that with a self-consciously twisty plot and a fast-forward narrative situation which is just begging the reader to gasp 'how did that happen?' and I felt too manipulated. Try this if you like dark and disturbing but it was too much for me. Oh, and there's a lot of detail of cookery and cement...

I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't. This is the first book in over 6 years that I did not finish.

I just could not get into it. I was very excited by reading the blurb and started with a lot of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, this quickly turned into boredom. I was not at all interested in Patrick, who spends his days in 2008 with making food, Hannah seemed extremely bland to me and Matthew was just nothing special.

It is a shame because this could have been a very good read, but it was just not for me.

I read this entire book but, right from start until finish, I just could not get into it.

Perhaps this kind of thriller does not mix well with literary fiction for me. There were many things about Grist Mill Road that reminded me of the tone and style of American Psycho (which I get will seem like a huge compliment to many readers). Their narratives are both cold, distant and detached. Grisly things happen in horrific detail but there is no emotional attachment to them.

As seems to be the case with almost all thrillers I read lately, this book alternates between the past - 1982, to be exact - and the present, which is 2008, during the economic collapse. In 1982, in a small town a couple of hours outside of New York City, Patrick, Matthew and Hannah go into the woods, and there Patrick witnesses a violent attack by Matthew against Hannah. Frozen to the spot, he does not attempt to stop the crime.

I was prepared for the violence after reading other reviews. It is extremely graphic and disgusting and may be too much for some readers. Matthew shoots Hannah many times with a BB gun - this is not a spoiler; it all happens in the first chapter. Personally, I can handle most scenes of violence, so this wasn't a major problem for me. The sheer boredom I felt during the 2008 chapters was the real problem.

Patrick's first person account in 1982 then switches to third person in 2008. While there is some life to the former, the latter consists largely of a meditation on gastronomy. Patrick slow cooks steak at the perfect temperature; dots little rounds of egg yolk around the centrepiece on a plate. Hannah's perspective is not much better, as she undertakes the writing of a true crime book.

Even Matthew's perspective - the one I was most anticipating - drags with daily minutiae that I didn't care about. And when the inevitable "twist" in events is revealed, it is anticlimactic, probably even more so because the tension has all been drained by the tedious padding in between. I also don't think it did much to change my opinion of the characters.

In the case of Grist Mill Road, "literary thriller" seems to mean a thriller with all thrills removed.

Christopher Yates writes a intelligent and multilayered dark literary thriller. It begins in 1982 with three teenagers go out on a hot summer day in the Swangum Mountains where a nightmare of a violent scenario develops that leaves the reader reeling in horror. Matthew and Patrick (Patch) are with Hannah, this incident is to bond the three together with deep ramifications that shape them and their future. One is left blind in one eye and another ends up in prison. They are in their forties in New York when their paths are to cross again. Patch is married to Hannah and has a cooking blog. Will their marriage be able to survive the revelations that come to surface? The narrative is delivered primarily from Patrick's perspective, and goes back and forth in time. The reader who thinks that it is blatantly obvious what occurred in that incident comes to slowly understand that all is not as it seems, in fact they are symbolically blind.

With his deft sleights of hand, Yates takes us on a journey with revelations of small town living and his marvellously complex characters. He initially paints a picture, only to peel it back, layer by layer to reveal a different picture underneath it. His prose is beautifully written, compelling and suspenseful. His depth of detail is staggering such as when presenting Patch's recipes and ingredients and the cement factory. The author's prime talent is his characterisation, it is his skill in this area, his psychological depth and insights that have you hooked into the story. Matthew's abusive childhood tore me apart, the suffering that marred his life. This novel is about sexual desire, longings, lies, secrets, resentments, violence and tragedy. The young lives laid to waste, what is done and what is not done A wonderful and enthralling read.