Book Review: Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham!

So you may have noticed that I am adding more book reviews to my blog and I hope you are enjoying them! I have always been a book lover but since joining Good Reads at the start of this year my ‘Read’ list has just multiplied! I’m currently on holiday and I’ve just finished my fifth book but one has really stuck in my mind and that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you today. Rush of Blood* is a mystery/thriller written by Mark Billingham and centres around the disappearance of a girl from a holiday resort in Florida.

Three British couples meet around the pool on their Florida holiday and become fast friends. But on Easter Sunday, the last day of their vacation, tragedy strikes: the fourteen-year-old daughter of an American vacationer goes missing, and her body is later found floating in the mangroves. When the shocked couples return home to the U.K., they remain in contact, and over the course of three increasingly fraught dinner parties they come to know one another better. But they don’t always like what they find. Buried beneath these apparently normal exteriors are some unusual kinks and unpleasant vices. Then, a second girl goes missing, in Kent—not far from where any of the couples lives. Could it be that one of these six has a secret far darker than anybody can imagine?

It was the blurb that really drew me in to this book as the plot sounded so unique compared to a lot of mystery/thriller novels. Although this is initially set in the states, it is a British book and is eventually set in and around London. Three couples who meet on holiday are connected through the disappearance of a girl in their resort. They decide to meet up again once they return home to take it turns to host a dinner party and through this we discover more about their shady pasts!

Each of the couples are suspiciously shifty which keeps you guessing right until the very end. One has an awful temper; one has a criminal record of rape and another is just downright weird and that’s just the men! The women are eerily odd too which leaves you wondering which of the six has the motive? The chapters are written from different characters perspective, including the 3 couples, the detectives investigating this case and also a few chapters from the killer themselves to really amp up the excitement!

I can honestly say that this is one of the best books I have read in a long time and really kept the pages turning and me guessing right until the very very end. If you love mysteries, thrillers or ‘whodunnit’s’ then you have to give this a go. This is the first book in a very long time that I would happily rate as 5/5. It’s so easy to read; you really get to understand the characters and get into their heads and the plot is really unique. What more could you as for?!

Much Love

xoxo

*Received free from Net Galley