The Favour: The gripping new thriller from an author 'at the top of British psychological suspense writing' (Observer)

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The colourful background characters were also fun and frustrating to read and the story got curiouser and curiouser as time went on, keeping me on the edge of my seat as I read. But here is Jude, bumbling her way from one disaster into the next and making one terrible decision after another.

I thought it was well written, tense at times, frustrating at others (I was mentally begging Jude to get out of that house!

There are plenty of red herrings as we meet different characters – and some of them do seem a little wasted, as they do not bring much to the plot other than a little bit of distraction. After graduating with a first class honours degree in English Literature from Oxford University, she began her first job, working with emotionally disturbed children in Sheffield.

A page-turner as usual, but the plot seems a little more logical and not as unbelievable and farfetched as in the others, when the solutions came to me like some sort of letdown. When Jude’s first love Liam turns up in her life after ten years of no contact, asking her for a favour, she just can’t say no. Future readers, if you are okay with preposterous and illogical plots then you'll have a better time than I did. And just when everything seems to have been revealed, there’s a chilling, jaw-dropping twist in the final pages. The actual crime elements feel somewhat perfunctory but the absurdist underpinnings make this more interesting than the usual psychological thriller.If you enjoy a pacy thriller with a complex plot, then this may not be the book for you – but if you enjoy a well-crafted character-led story full of secrets, then this definitely is the book for you. It’s over eleven years since Jude Winter has seen Liam Birch, but what they shared when they were eighteen has never left her. And I enjoyed this even though the protagonist – Jude, a young geriatrician – annoyed the crap out of me, making one bad decision after another. The twists are actually surprising and the story leaves you suspended in a sort of disbelief and eagerness to find out what happens. The main character acts out an existential crisis: Jude's engagement collapses, she's left her home, she's been put on stress leave from her job, and a dark secret from her past re-emerges.

Sowohl die Protagonistin Jude als auch die seltsamen Nebencharaktere sind mir mehr und mehr auf den Wecker gegangen. As always read these books too fast and wish I had taken more time and can't wait for the next one .THE GRIPPING NEW THRILLER FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR NICCI FRENCH, shortlisted for the 2023 Ned Kelly Awards for Best International Crime Fiction? He wants her to drive up to a remote cottage on the Norfolk coast, using his car and paying with his credit card, and then wait for him to arrive by train the following evening. Whilst I struggled with Jude as a main character, I still appreciated the author’s writing style, which I always find refreshing and a bit dreamy and which makes the images come to life in that blurry, slow-motion aspect nightmares are made of (perfect for a mystery). I did find this book a page-turner, as I just had to know what was going to happen and who was involved with what throughout the narrative. Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you.

Nicci Gerrard and Sean French ( writing together as Nicci French) are back with another standalone thriller, The Favour. And, the phrase ‘the favour’ takes on so many different meanings as you work your way through the story – some having much more significance than the other.I will be trying their other books at some point and would recommend The Favour as a quick relaxing read under the genre of a murder mystery rather than a psychological thriller. There are a lot of characters in this novel, and even Liam, who dies almost immediately after we read about him, plays an important role.