Review by Booklist Review
When Tabitha Muir returns to her rural Scottish hometown after 20 years away, she's seeking refuge. Her marriage has ended in betrayal, and she lost both her job and custody of her son. What she finds instead is a multilayered mystery shrouded in generations of Muir family secrets, starting when she inadvertently witnesses an attempt to explode the dam on the loch near her home, quickly followed by the suspicious death of her cousin Davey. Joining forces with Davey's lifelong friends, Gordo and Barrett, she slowly uncovers the truth, revealing one shocking discovery after another. In a suspenseful, stand-alone psychological thriller from an author also known for her historical and humorous cozy mystery series, McPherson (A Gingerbread House, 2021) expertly leads readers down a crooked path, providing just enough information to make it satisfying to puzzle it all out. While there is plenty of action, the core appeal of this story is the way the cast of mismatched, down-on-their-luck characters overcome the dysfunction of their families of origin to build their own family of choice together.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The murder of her cousin moves a Scottish woman to explore her past. When her husband divorced her, Tabitha Lawson lost not only her marriage but her job, since he anonymously told her employer about a schizophrenia diagnosis she hadn't revealed to them. Her son chose to live with his father; Tabitha moved in with her mother, Zelda, whose dark paintings give her nightmares. So do the dark waters of the loch she's lived nearby most of her life. Her cousin Davey Muir, a coder and collector, and his friend Gordo spend a lot of time with Barrett, a divorced gardener with two teen girls, picking up litter near the loch. It's all very routine until Gordo reports a mysterious underwater explosion at the loch, which is set to be drained and turned into parkland. When Davey doesn't answer his door, Tabitha gets the police to investigate just as Barrett and Gordo arrive to find Davey dead. Although he's left what looks like a suicide note, his friends can't believe he'd kill himself. Neither can Tabitha, who's inherited everything he owned. When she, Barrett, and Gordo clean out his house, which is packed to the rafters with junk, they start uncovering long-hidden family secrets. Tabitha and her sister, Jocasta, and Davey and his brother, Johnny, all grew up together, children of a pair of brothers who both died by suicide. The marriage of Jo and Johnny puts even more pressure on the turbulent family dynamics. Tabitha, Davey's friends, and their teenage children launch an investigation that will reveal that everything Tabitha thought she knew about her childhood is based on false memories. A tense, beautifully written page-turner with a truly unsettling denouement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
