Aspects of this book reminded me a little of an Agatha Christie whodunit but without the benefit of Poirot. A group of reunite on a remote island retreat to celebrate Jens hen weekend but they all get more than they bargained for. When one of the party disappears and they receive a video showing the girl is in grave danger the kidnapper says they want money before she is released and for perceived wrongs from the past to be rectified.

Before long each of the girls is rxaming their pasts and as we focus on each character it seems that they all have something to hide. But whose secret is the kidnapper alluding to and can they save their friend in time to prevent the worst happening. Read on......

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.
This is a stand-alone by Chris Brookmyre, set on a remote Scottish Island, where a group of women go for a Hen weekend. Not really any surprise that they find themselves trapped on the island with a dead body, and time running out before there’s another. Who will leave the island alive?
Mistrust, paranoia, fear, secrets and lies, with Brookmyre’s customary unexpected twists. Well written, the story drew me in. The reason it’s a 4* is simply that the plot twists and ‘coincidences’ were a wee bit convoluted.

This is a really gripping 'locked room' mystery thriller. Stacked with believable characters/suspects, it's well plotted and unpredictable enough to keep you guessing and second-guessing to the very end. Would make a brilliant TV adaptation too someday!

Secrets and lies on a remote Scottish isle; so far so predictable. But this is a wild ride with a strong cast of believable women, albeit with pretty dramatic secrets.
In the vein of Ruth Ware or Lucy Foley, it’s a fun read which plays with easy assumptions, all tied up in a satisfying conclusion.
My only gripe is that the title (The Cliff House) is rather misleading. It makes for a nice cover but I’m not sure a cliff is even mentioned.

The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre
I have read and enjoyed many of Chris Brookmyre’s previous novels such as Black Widow and Fallen Angel and his latest psychological thriller appears to be in a similar vein. It is set on a small remote Scottish island on the edge of the Atlantic. It is the ideal setting for a locked room murder. The women on the hen party are there entirely alone. There is only intermittent internet service and no phone reception. They are staying in a beautiful and expensive mansion with attractions such as an infinity pool and a golf course. Jen, the hen in question, is a successful business woman who has recently sold her business whilst retaining a controlling interest leaving an extremely wealthy woman. Her fiancé is Zaki Hussain and she is to meet his sister Samira for the first time on the hen do. The rest of the guests, including a well-known pop star, all have their own secrets and we are left to imagine how these secrets will be revealed and what their impact will be upon the party.

They have barely arrived on the island and consumed large quantities of alcohol before a body is discovered in the kitchen. The body is that of their chef for the weekend who had been in the kitchen preparing their evening meal. Samira has previously stepped outside to get some and the next thing they know they all receive a message from The Reaper saying that one of the guests on the island is not who they claim to be and including a picture of Samira, drugged and suspended by her neck and seated on a large block of melting ice.

It is an entertaining thriller and there are numerous twists leading to a tense finale. I must admit to guessing who The Reaper would turn out to be but I liked the way it developed. It is not my favourite novel by Chris Brookmyre but it kept me engaged to the end and I will recommend it to others.
Many thanks to the author, the publishers and to Net Galley for the opportunity to read the book in return for an honest review.

The clog house - Chris Brookmyre

Well written and I would like to recommend to everyone. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read

Another brilliant book from Chris Brookmyre, full of twisty plot lines that keep you guessing to the end. I loved the across the ages relationship between Millie and Jerry and it’s all written with the usual vim and spark of Brookmyre’s always readable style.

I love a book that is akin to a good old-fashioned Poirot style mystery- a room full of possible suspects and everyone with a secret. Well, this book had it in spades!

Each character was well developed and I really liked the authenticity of them being Scottish, as well as the jumbled mix of professions which added something to the storyline. I must admit that about 70% through, I had an inkling about the possible outcome, which was true but also not true- the twists kept coming!

I’d thoroughly recommend this book to anyone wanting a thriller with twists and turns and many narratives to enhance the tangled web.

Jen is having her hen party on a luxurious private island ,where they are left alone for 72 hrs until they will be collected again. They are a mixed group of girls , most with issues , one of them disappears and a message comes through saying that unless one admits her terrible secret the missing girl will be killed . However they all have secrets but nobody wants to tell , these things come out in time , but until then an eventful search of the island is put in place to find the missing girl and find out who is doing this.

Definitely one of my favourite, if not entirely original, sub genres. A group of women go on a hen weekend to a remote island and all of them have secrets and intertwined pasts. Then all links and communications to the outside world get cut off which leads them to a more than tricky situation.
When a murder is committed and one of their friends goes missing they all get a message saying their friend won’t be safe until someone in their midst confesses their secret. The problem is all of the women have secrets from their pasts and nobody wants to confess.
I admit I found the most part of the story quite confusing trying to keep up with who all of the characters are as I wasn’t quite engaged enough to concentrate. The final third of the story caught my attention more as there were some clever twists and turns and the pace quickened.
Overall a fairly decent read and I’d recommend you stick with it.

This book was a great read. It allows you to really get to know the characters...or do you think.
I did not guess the outcome of this very cleverly written psychological thriller. Brilliant!

A luxurious house on a remote Scottish Island is the venue for this psychological thriller where we meet Jen a bride to be and her "hens"
Although I have read many books with this plot this one was very different, all seems well at the beginning, a private chef brings cocktails whilst preparing dinner. When the meal fails to appear the women get the shock of their lives when the chef is found dead in the kitchen. A message then comes to all their phones with one of the women having been drugged and the kidnapper threatening them to reveal their secrets in order for her to be released. However as they all have secrets, who goes first?
There are no chapters to speak of, each woman has there own section and at the end of each part is a cliffhanger so you just have to continue reading. Found it hard to put down as I was so invested in the story.

Jen is holding her hen party on a remote Scottish island with sketchy Internet connection and a dodgy telephone signal. She has invited six of her friends, not all of whom know each other and two of whom hate each other. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, fairly quickly, the chef is murdered and the women receive a message saying Jen’s future sister-in-law will be next unless one of the party confesses her secrets. The problem is, they’re all harbouring secrets … and they all have a motive.

Told from the multiple points-of-view of the main characters, this is a fast-paced novel, a spin on a locked room mystery that fans of Lucy Foley’s The Guest List will devour. Because the action kicks off from the start, there are a lot of characters to get to know in one go, which takes a bit of concentration, but after the opening chapters, The Cliff House turns into an unputdownable page-turner.

This was my first book by Chris Brookmyre and I loved the author’s style. I’m looking forward to reading another of his books - The Cut, which was recently longlisted for The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

Jen and six friends that she has made all through her life have been invited to her hen party on a secluded luxury private Scottish island called Clachan Geal. They are to enjoy the weekend away on the remote island. Which has only one way off the island is the Helicopter that they arrived in, but it won’t be back for 72 hours and there is no telephone signal.
When the chef that has been provided on the weekend away has been found murdered, they girls panic and try and send a message to get help, but the internet has been blocked. and one of the six women Samira has gone missing. A message with a video turns up with Samira tied up and a noose around her neck from someone called The Reaper saying one of them doesn’t confess their terrible secrets that Samira will be killed.
Thank you NetGalley and Little brown for my copy of The Cliff house by Chris Brookmyre. This is my first book from the author I have read, and it won’t be my last.
There has been a lot of mystery stories lately that have been on set on islands and at first, I thought this was going to be a typical one of them stories, but I was wrong. This is a great mystery and page turner from the author. This is written in several points of view of the six friends. You get to know each other’s darkest secrets which you think they are innocent until they reveal all and all have motive to what’s going on, on the island and then that’s where the trust issues start.
I really enjoyed The Cliff house except for the ending which I was expecting a bit more of than what it delivered. 4 stars from me.

The Cliff House is a mystery thriller centred around a hen party of 7 women on a remote Scottish island. I've always enjoyed the genre and although I feel it's been overdone in the market, I was still drawn to the premise. About a quarter of the way in though, I was tempted to give up - for me, personally, there were too many characters and it all felt a bit contrived. However, I continued as the plot intrigued me. I thought the reveals and twists were quite well done but the characters were just too remote for me to connect with and it all felt a bit far-fetched which took away the reading pleasure. I liked the structure of the book and there was definitely suspense but unfortunately this book isn't for me.

Thrillers often follow trends and right now murder mysteries set on small Scottish islands seem to be all the rage, usually featuring a murder small group of people as suspects who know each other,or do they?
The Cliff House by Chris Brookmyre confused me initially as it appeared to be treading a well-worn path and fans of his will know that's something he doesn't do.

Bride to be Jen has chosen to have her Hen party at a luxury resort on that eponymous small Scottish Island. There to celebrate with her are a small group comprising of old friends and newer acquaintances.
After the initial introductions to the characters with their relationships to each other established things don't go quite as planned. With a murderer on the loose and one of their number missing it becomes obvious that one of the women is keeping a secret that is putting the others in peril. This being a Chris Brookmyre novel things are not that simple and there are shocking secrets galore amongst the small group,many of which might invite dire retribution from those they've wronged.

This is great fun,a clever plot,plenty of tension and some trademark Brookmyre gore and black humour. It begins simply then there prove to be some mightily complicated relationships and connected backstories to muddy the waters as more information about each of the ladies is drip-red to the reader.
If you're already a fan of Chris Brookmyre you'll enjoy this,if you've never read any of his work give this a try,he's a class act.

This is a very readable book, centred on a group of women gathered for a hen weekend that turns into a nightmare.

Jen is the hen, and has invited various friends old and new, plus some people she doesn't really know, such as her partner's sister. It's clear that the guests have uncomfortable histories with each other. But when a murder apparently takes place, and the women are told that one of them is not who she seems, they fight to keep their sordid secrets hidden.

Samira, Jen's future sister-in-law, is taken hostage. And the rest of the party is told that unless the one with the secret comes clean, she will be killed. But they all have secrets and so are left wondering which exactly has the worst.

It's a very readable book and the characters aren't bad. Jen in particular is well-drawn as a former victim of domestic violence who has turned her life around. But her former partner Jason painted her as the villain, and his sister Beattie believed him, and so the reader isn't quite sure which version is the real one.

There's a similar dynamic going on with other characters. Michelle is a big rock star who went to school with Jen and Helena, who was briefly in a band with Michelle. But Helena is angry at being 'turfed out' as she sees it, while Michelle thinks Helena got what she wanted by having a settled family instead of a glamorous life.

We aren't sure what to make of Michelle as a result - is she a selfish, money-grabbing person who doesn't care about her friends or did she just make the most of her opportunities? As the book progresses, the characters of the women become clear.

The mystery at the heart of the book - who is the Reaper who has kidnapped Samira and what is the secret they want to be revealed - keeps us guessing about the true nature of the women. Everyone has something to hide. I would say it is slightly over-written and isn't the kind of book that will win literary prizes, but it's an interesting read with some good characters.

What a fun read to finish this weekend!
I enjoyed this book, I loved the setting of it.

However, a couple of things that bothered me was to do with the believability of the whole thing.
Firstly, Moira! What? For a years-ahead booked super luxurious resort, there is a crazy old lady roaming around? And why? Just.. no.

The characters were cool, I learned a lot about them, which was kind of the point. But I felt like some of their motivations and choices were not fully believable and that's ok, I have no issue with suspending my belief, but - something it was a little too far-fetched how serious things were are how everyone just seemed so ok to forgive and forget so easily, no questions asked.
Especially when it comes to murder? And leaking a sex tape (I mean come on! if that is your password, you may know who else knows it?)

I had a suspicion of which of the ladies was involved from pretty early on, but the ending did offer something more.

I just don't know about this one, it seems both character and actions-wise the book a tad too convoluted. It was a tad too much to be able to tie it with a neat bow at the end. Messy!

I still enjoyed it, but I have read better executions of a similar story, like Guest List, for example.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

It is sad to see experienced writers trying their luck with genres that have been long ago satiated with hackneyed tropes and identical plotting due to the mass publication of mediocre novels throughout the last decade. Christopher Brookmyre, one of the leading representatives of the Scottish Tartan Noir tradition and author of the enticing Jack Parlabane series, is a seasoned crime writer whose books are known to arouse both the readers' emotional and intellectual side with their strong narratives, thoroughly researched storylines, and credible characterization. In The Cliff House, Brookmyre's upcoming thriller due to be published in July 2022, the author attempts to create a blend of closed-room mystery and psychological thriller, featuring solely women characters and exploring the burden of secrets that become the main theme of the novel as their effect regarding the relationships between the protagonists is the primary narrative vehicle that thrusts the story forward. Unfortunately, the final result is a lukewarm thriller lacking even the slightest trace of suspense and strongly reminiscent of several similar works by authors who dominate the aforementioned genres such as Ruth Ware, Shari Lapena, and Lucy Foley.

It is not so much that I resent the novels written by these authors, but the truth is that it is tiresome to read mysteries, supposed to be exciting and drive the reader to a state of thrilling expectancy in order to see what's coming next, repeating the same storyline and placing their action in kindred settings, thus losing any capacity to surprise. It is essential for a decent closed-room mystery to have a strong sense of place and an inventive plotline destined to keep the reader in tenterhooks, guessing and speculating as to who is the villain and what will be his next move. Sadly, the majority of the authors who thrive in the genre exhaust their stories with twist after twist that purportedly render their novels original and unpredictable while in fact their obsession with constantly upending the narrative results in a farcical reiteration that leaves the reader cold and with a strong sense of deja vu. The pioneers of the genre were prudent enough to furnish their novels with clever plots that were not based on the element of surprise and their primary aim was to entertain rather than bewilder the readers with their ingenuity.

In The Cliff House, seven women travel to the exclusive resort of Clachan Geal, set in an isolated island in the north of Scotland, for a hen weekend though things take an unexpected turn when a brutal murder takes place in the opulent mansion that entertains them and soon after one of them gets abducted by a mysterious individual calling himself "The Reaper". Jen, Helena, Michelle, Samira, Beattie, Lauren, and Kennedy are a divergent group of women whose relationships are fraught with antagonism and bitterness due to past events that mark their personal histories. The secrets that have remained buried for several years will be forced out in the open as The Reaper informs them that one of them is not who she claims to be, thus injecting the poison of suspicion which leads to their questioning each other. In the course of one evening, the protagonists will unearth the most disturbing of past misdeeds of their peers and they will search for a way to make amends in order to save Samira who is the one that gets kidnapped. Who is the person that the Reaper indicates as an impostor? And will the women win the race against time and find the person responsible for their dire predicament?

Brookmyre tells his story through the eyes of each one of the characters and there is not a single one left out. The gradually accelerating pacing of the narration is further accentuated by the heavy use of dialogue which dominates the novel. The isolated setting remains an untapped background and its lost potential is one of the novel's cardinal sins. What could become a sinister, all-consuming backdrop is reduced to a locale to which the author devotes some sparse descriptions, failing to realize its significance for the mood and atmosphere of the text. Furthermore, the perpetual disclosure of secrets by the characters is the sole source of dramatic development, leading to a lopsided outcome and unwillingly highlighting the rest of the novel's deficiencies. The characters are also undeveloped, diminished to mere machines of confession and defined by their past transgressions rather than their actions as agents of the story in hand. We are supposed to empathize with them and excuse some of their misdemeanors by means of the author offering a great deal of exposition regarding the reasoning of their behavior. Nevertheless, I thought that the overall characterization was rather scrappy and I wasn't moved by any of the personal sub-stories.

To conclude, The Cliff House is not a book that has anything new to offer and certainly not the ideal start for the readers who are not familiar with Brookmyre's corpus. If you want to for an opinion concerning his writing skills, you should go back to the first installments of the Jack Parlabane novels. This upcoming aspiring amalgam of crime fiction's sub-genres doesn't succeed in its mission to entertain and thrill as it features all the cliched tropes that we've encountered in numerous other works by authors who have gained enormous, and frankly undeserving, reputation simply by copying the narrative form of the classical cozy mysteries of the 1920s and 1930s, and adding some splashes of modern thriller in the mix. It would be better to revisit the works by the godfathers of the genre such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and John Dickson Carr. I only read this book because of my admiration for Brookmyre as a crime writer, but my worst fears that sprung from reading the synopsis became a reality as I was reading this one. If you are into these kind of crime novels, you may find some redeeming qualities in The Cliff House, even though I sincerely struggled to find one. I want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free ARC of this title in exchange of an honest review.

I tried and got to about 50% but I just couldn’t get on with this book.

Maybe I should have continued, but I honestly couldn’t relate to any of the characters, nor did any of them seem to have much in the way of redeeming character.

I’ve not read Mr Brookmyre before so possibly he’s an acquired taste but sadly not for me.

My thanks nonetheless to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.