Halfway - B. E. Jones
If everyone is lying, who can you trust?
The Halfway Inn is closed to customers, side-lined by a bypass and hidden deep in inhospitable countryside. One winter's night, two women end up knocking on the door, seeking refuge as a blizzard takes hold.
But why is the landlord less than pleased to see them? And what is his elderly father trying so hard to tell them?
At the local police station PC Lissa Lloyd is holding the fort while the rest of her team share in the rare excitement of a brutal murder at an isolated farmhouse. A dangerous fugitive is on the run - but how can Lissa make a name for herself if she's stuck at her desk? When a call comes in saying the local district nurse is missing, she jumps at the chance to investigate her disappearance.
The strangers at Halfway wait out the storm, but soon realise they might have been safer on the road. It seems not all the travellers will make it home for Christmas ...
Review
The hitchhiker is running away from something and just wants to find a safe place, the law wants to make a name for herself and not be stuck uselessly behind her desk forever and the old man knows something is very wrong but his deteriorated mind won't allow him to form the right connections and express his fears. Seeking refugee from the blizzard they all end up at the Halfway Inn together where is soon becomes clear your chances of survival might have been higher outside in the storm!
The prologue gives you a glimpse of how the day ends for the three characters, its intriguing and you certainly want to find out what happens and what events lead to this point. Chapter one takes you back to the beginning of that day and the chapters are shared been the hitchhiker, the law and the old man. It's a slow burner from then on until its explosive climax, whereas I personally prefer to have twists spread throughout the book rather than all crammed into the end.
I know that it is necessary to lay all the different threads throughout so they can get tangled up in order to deliver that ending but I found the build up a bit tedious. I also didn't like any of the characters I wasn't rooting for any of them, they are all untrustworthy and I had a feeling of unease constantly, but maybe that was the point? I won't go into detail about the ending (I don't want to ruin it) but I will say it is not for the faint-hearted. For me it was a classic case of the perils judging a book by its cover but the blurb sounded irresistible!
The prologue gives you a glimpse of how the day ends for the three characters, its intriguing and you certainly want to find out what happens and what events lead to this point. Chapter one takes you back to the beginning of that day and the chapters are shared been the hitchhiker, the law and the old man. It's a slow burner from then on until its explosive climax, whereas I personally prefer to have twists spread throughout the book rather than all crammed into the end.
I know that it is necessary to lay all the different threads throughout so they can get tangled up in order to deliver that ending but I found the build up a bit tedious. I also didn't like any of the characters I wasn't rooting for any of them, they are all untrustworthy and I had a feeling of unease constantly, but maybe that was the point? I won't go into detail about the ending (I don't want to ruin it) but I will say it is not for the faint-hearted. For me it was a classic case of the perils judging a book by its cover but the blurb sounded irresistible!
Thanks to NetGalley and the Little Brown Book Group UK for sending me this in exchange for an open and honest review.
⭐⭐⭐
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