A Slow Fire Burning

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Fast-paced , highly charged and carried off with so much confidence that it is impossible to resist . I recommend this one for anyone looking for in parts a character study, mystery, suspense/thriller - you won't regret it! It is slow and it is a little compelling to read because when you start one of the narrators’ chapter, you ask yourself who was this character and you get to turn back for reading his/ her story one more time to refresh your memory!

I am not sure who was responsible, despite someone being convicted of the crime, and some of the characters didn’t really have any input at the ending. She ran the tips of her wrinkled fingers back and forth over her beautiful, bone-white scars: hip, thigh, shoulder, back of skull. With a limited cast, a whodunnit reveal it is rarely shocking anymore, but the reasoning behind the crime itself was something that actually made my jaw drop!As she turned to leave, her eye snagged on something on the floor, something out of place-a glint of silver mired in sticky, blackening blood. The barge was a mess-paint peeling, lintels rusted, chimney all a skew-while he himself looked much too clean for canal life. Cold for March, and yet she noticed that the cabin doors of the neighboring narrowboat were open, just as they had been the night before. The first half of the book was a bit slow and it took some time to figure out each character's personality and how it played into the storyline.

It’s clearly a case of murder, so for the police it’s now simply a case of identifying who had both the opportunity and the motive. Sorry but I have to admit this is not one of my favorite works of the author and not one of my favorite reads of this year! Compelling and intricately plotted, it was its flawed and utterly credible women, and the warmth and wit of their irreverent voices, that I loved the most. Twenty-three-year-old Daniel Sutherland is found stabbed to death on the shabby houseboat where he lived, mere weeks after his alcoholic mother Angela died alone, falling down the stairs. I can’t say it was an explosive moment for me and that’s perhaps because there are many minor twists here and this one sort of melded in with the crowd.

Now, the master of the sophisticated psychological thriller is back again (second novel Into The Water was released in 2017 and gobbled up by fans) with the addictive A Slow Fire Burning. The towpath was still, the roads up above quiet too, no sounds save for the throb of a generator, the squabble of moorhens ghosting gently past. A Slow Fire Burning is a hugely gripping, character-based thriller, with great writing and brilliant twists. Yet, a big YET, despite the book being character led, Hawkins uses the characterisations to create a beautifully weighted read. In the bathroom, she dropped the watch into the sink, tore off the paper, dropped the towel on the floor.

Early in the book, one of the women mentions how old books are slowly self-combusting, alluding to the deterioration that occurs inside paper. I found the last half of the book to be real good as everything unfolded and came together in some shocking revelations. The first time she saw him, she'd said good morning and he'd looked up at her and smiled and all the hair stood up on the back of her neck.

There are unreliable and unlikeable characters, a book within a book and plenty of twists and turns.

Here are characters you want to spend time with, living in a world you believe in, and caught up in a plot that holds you in its grip. The smell and the look of him, impossible to resist, his beautiful dead face, glassy eyes framed by long lashes, plump lips drawn back from even, white teeth.

Inside her a bitter darkness bloomed as she watched, with helpless desperation, her once limitless horizons narrow. Not something Laura expected to say or even think, but standing there in her bathroom, shaking uncontrollably, blood pulsing hot and steady from the cut to her arm, she had to admit that imaginary Deidre was bang on the money.