Thank you to Netgalley and Headline for allowing me and early copy to enjoy.
This was my first book by Rachel Abbott that I've read. I didn't realise upon requesting that it was book 4 however it read perfectly as a standalone.
The story begins with three women, their only connection, one man Ellis Cobain.
One is his wife, one is his current Mistress and one his ex Mistress. Ellis is a narcissist. They get together and plan to blackmail him, but instead he ends up dead on a yacht....who did it?
This book had me gripped from the start, with a fabulous ending. Rachel Abbott is a a great crime writer!

This is the first I've read any of Rachel Abbott but certainly won't be the last if this book is anything to go by. I had no idea it was the fourth in a series so it does read well as a standalone.
It is a really well written book with many twists turns. Extremely wealthy philanthropist Ellis Cobain is found dead aboard his luxury yacht amid suspicious circumstances. Very quickly it becomes clear that three women, Celia, Juliette and Nadia, who have no previous connection all have good motive to kill Cobain. They may have motives but they also have solid alibis for the time of death which baffles the police.
The story cleverly looks at each of the suspects and their links to the victim and what they were up to leading up to his death. The suspense is palpable throughout even when the killer becomes quite clear.

4/5 ⭐

🛶 At a boutique hotel on the Cornish coast, strangers Celia, Juliette and Nadia cross paths. They have little in common — the first, a former actress, the second an interior decorator and the third, a talented singer; but all have been tormented by the wealthy philanthropist who's expecting a knighthood, Ellis Cobain. Only they know that behind his public persona is an evil, controlling man who preys on women. So when they realise who connects them and what they have to lose, they come together to blackmail Ellis and free themselves from his grasp. But things take a dangerous turn when he is discovered dead the next morning. Not knowing who did it, they are now desperate to cover their own tracks.

🛶 This thriller put me on the edge throughout the 400 pages and kept me constantly guessing who the actual killer is! All the main characters were so unique, and each chapter reveals a slither of their personality. I found myself truly rooting for the women despite their individual flaws, because the author does a brilliant job in conveying the raw truth of their respective experiences with Ellis. The boutique sets a good backdrop for the plot and complimented the twisty, thrilling and eerie energy. My only wish is that the ending was slightly different. That truly shocked me and slightly disappointed me but because the plot was so good for the first 90% of the book, it was still a strong read for me.

A gripping thriller that keeps you guessing till the end. Ellis Cobain is murdered, the suspects all have a reason to want him dead but which one is guilty? Plenty of twists along the way. This is my first Stephanie King book but not my last. Thanks to Headline and Netgalley for this review ARC.

Told from a few different perspectives, with an ending I hadn’t foreseen.

After a weekend away with her Mum, Stephanie King has had to return to the boutique hotel in order to investigation the murder of Ellis Cobain. Will her people watching observations over this weekend aid their investigations?… Only time will tell.

Another great read from Rachel Abbott.

I like the books with this detective, Stephanie King. You get a lot of story with the other characters and King has a gentle touch with them.
I liked this story of a horrid man being killed with a few alternative suspects.

The 4th in the series of the Stephanie King thrillers.

The book hooks you from the very first page. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. I couldn’t put it down. It has all the elements that really do make for the perfect thriller, it’s tense, has twists and turns throughout, I would definitely recommend.

I always look forward to Rachel Abbott books and was really pleased to receive this advanced copy. Rachel is an excellent storyteller but I was a little disappointed with this book. I did enjoy it overall but I found some of the scenarios a little far fetched.
Nevertheless, it is a definite 4 stars.

The difficulty of reviewing this book with objectivity is that we’re supposed to not like the murder victim who was a thoroughly odious man and the world (obviously I appreciate this is a fictional character) is a much better place without him. What intrigued me was that although there were a limited amount of suspects, the author keeps the reader from working out what had happened. We get the police perspective, we’re drip fed the suspects stories and thoughts by a clever use of timelines mixed with up to date events. Just when you think you’ve worked it all out another chapter turns that thinking around. Overall a great read but one that should be read in as few sittings as possible so you can keep the threads fresh.

This is the 4th book in this series and you all know what I am going to say next... or if you don't, to get the best from a series book wrt the characters, their development and backstory, I would always advise starting from the beginning and reading in order. I mean, that's the point of a series...
Anyway, in this, her 4th outing, Stephanie King really has her work cut out for her cutting through all the noise to solve the case in front of her. But I get ahead... We start with a trio of (initially anyway) strangers - Celia, Juliette, and Nadia - all with one person in common; Ellis Cobain. He is a bit of a two sided coin, publicly he is a well respected wealthy philanthropist en route for a Knighthood. But our three ladies all know a very different version of him, a much darker side... They are brought together at a posh hotel by circumstances and, once they realise their connection, come together to teach Ellis a lesson he won't forget... But what was only supposed to be blackmail, turns out to be murder. But which of the women was responsible, who didn't stick to the plan, who went too far?
Enter Stephanie King and her team to investigate... Well, I say enter, but she was already at the hotel with her mum and witnessed certain of the players prior to the main event... But will this help or hinder...?
There is definitely a lot in play in this book. It gets quite busy quite quickly and there is definitely a LOT to unpack to get to the underlying truth of it all. We get to see the investigation played out in real time with snippets from the past as flashbacks to illustrate and progress the plot. This means that the narrative gets on with itself very well indeed. There are the usual, and required, secrets lies and dysfunctional behaviour to be discovered along the way, as well as a bit of reader obfuscation thrown in for good measure.
The characters are well crafted and all play their parts very well. I have always liked Stephanie and this did not change during the book. Ellis was a nasty character and tbh I was almost rooting for the culprit to get away with it as I felt he deserved all he got...!
All in all, a worthy addition to a now well established series that I would thoroughly recommend. And, if you haven't already, I would also recommend this author's Tom Douglas series too. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

This the first book I’ve read by Rachel Abbott and I really enjoyed it. 5 stars out of 5.
The story is set in a hotel, various guests are introduced and then there is a sudden death of one of the guests.
The book then focuses on the police investigation and tells the stories of three women: Celia, Juliette and Nadia, who all have connections with one man, Ellis Cobain, and all have their own motives.
I hadn’t realised that this is part of a series focussing on the police detective, Stephanie King, however, you don’t have to have read the earlier titles to follow and enjoy this book.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for providing an advance copy in return for my honest opinion. I have also published this review on Goodreads.

A fantastic read full of twists and turns which kept me turning the pages from start to finish. This is a fast paced thrilling read which is not to be missed. I read this as a stand-alone book but will now read the others in this series.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

From the very start I did not want to put the book down, it was a compulsive read. The three women who held secrets, DS Stephanie King and one very evil man, who deserved to die. The story is full of so many twists that it was not easy to calculate who the murderer was. A sad but well rounded ending.
This is one of a set about DS King but each one is a stand alone.

Another fabulous book from Rachel Abbott. This is the first book I have read in the Stephanie King series but it was a good standalone. Fast paced ,gripping ,compelling, with lots of secrets Many twists and turns very atmospheric and an ending I didn't expect .Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

Interesting story, with multiple POVs, and one asshole of an antagonist (Rachel did her job well because that man made my skin crawl endlessly)

Slow burn in places. With the multiple POVs, can be a bit confusing at times having to untangle the different perspectives. I found myself going back a few pages to remember who we were following now in the story.

Some of the characters were dislikeable to a fault with no real development.

The first twist I guessed early on from the hints the author sprinkled through but the ending I didn't see coming at all.

Knowing now this is part of a series with 3 books before it, I can see that our main detective Stephanie King isn't mysterious but more a fleshed-out character that we would be privy to if having read the previous books. Nuances about her detective style and the way she and Gus work together make sense in hindsight.

Saying this, I am curious to go back to the first in the series to understand DS King more and see what is built into her character in this book and her relationships mentioned in the story.

Special Thanks to Headline, Wildfire and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this exceptional book

3 women
one death

a proper whodunnit

Celia, Juliette and Nadia they know nothing of each other but they are entwinned in a crime....

Ellis Cobain is married to one is blackmailing another to sleep with him and the other one is a former lover

he engineers it so that his wife and the one he is blacmailing are in the same hotel at the same time the icing on the cake is the apearance of the other one

what he didnt expect was to be found dead on his boat ....

what a kettle of fish this one is .... full of insighful innuendoes and red herrings galore .... never saw that ending coming at all

brilliantly written and very plausable....cant wait for the next book by this author

The fourth book of the Stephanie King series and this time she is on a relaxing break with her mother at an exclusive hotel in Cornwall. One evening in the restaurant she notices an unusual and extremely tense situation involving a husband and wife and another man. She thinks nothing more of it. However, shortly after returning from holiday she is called by her boss and close partner DCI Gus Brodie as a man has been found dead, in suspicious circumstances, on a yacht moored beside the hotel. Told from multiple POV’s this is a tense thriller and whilst part of series can be read as a stand-alone.

Briefly, the dead body is Ellis Cobain, a philanthropist who has a squeaky clean public personna, but his private life leaves much to be desired. There are three clear suspects, Celia, Juliette and Nadia, none of whom had met prior to the night of the murder, but all of whom had good reason to wish him dead.

Stephanie, Gus and their team struggle to work through the potential leads however, slowly but surely the story plays out, with great twists and turns, until it reaches the most startling finale which I certainly didn’t see coming! You will either love it or hate it but either way it was shocking. A stellar police procedural.
4,5⭐️

Celia, Juliette and Nadia are complete strangers with one thing in common: they have all been wronged by Ellis Cobain. A wealthy philanthropist on course for a knighthood and whose public persona is bulletproof. However, beneath this veneer is a sinister side that only the women closest to him have seen. A chance meeting at a boutique hotel allows the three women to realise what connects them all and they all make a pact to free them from his grasp. However the plan was never to kill him so when his body is discovered, none of them knows who did it and all must keep each other’s secrets. Would you keep a secret for a stranger, if it meant the blood was on your hands?

After reading ‘Don’t Look Away’ last year, I knew I wanted to know how the Stephanie King series continued and I was not disappointed. Despite being the fourth title in the series, having only read three and four, they do work perfectly as standalone reads, with adequate background information to characters provided.

It is a fast paced thriller, which picks up the pace rapidly for the latter section of the book, with the chapters varying between different characters POV. How everything links together is seamlessly entwined in the writing, Abbott having a writing style that grabs your attention the whole way through, making your brain work from the outset in figuring out the clues along the way.

And, no spoilers here, but oh my god, that ending! It is safe to say it was extremely unexpected, my heart was in my mouth and just couldn’t believe it. A very clever concluding twist, which has done the perfect job of making me count down to the next title in the series!

This is a great crime thriller.
Stephanie and her Mum are spending some time together and having a weekend away. At dinner a couple and another man catches her attention and she knows there’s a strange dynamic between the three of them.
A few days later she’s called out to the hotel as a man has been found dead on a yacht.
Stephanie suspects it’s one of the men she saw that night, and she’s right.
We then learn through flashback chapters that there’s three women who could have murdered Ellis - his wife or one of the two other women there who he’d had an affair with.
There’s quite a lot to this story and some twists and turns that will keep you guessing.
A great read.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I have read all the series of these books and always thoroughly enjoy the twists and how Rachel Abbott manages to fully immerse you in the characters and plot. Whilst this was was a great read, it was probably my least favourite of the 4. It certainly won’t stop me from recommending it to everyone or looking forward to more,, but I felt the middle section was a little drawn out. Still, it was yet another fantastic book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to an early copy of this book.