Six Wicked Reasons by Jo Spain
Genre: Domestic thriller, Crime fiction
Read: 15th March 2020
Purchase: Amazon
(publication date: 16th January 2020)
★ 1 star
Although I had never read Jo Spain before I was looking for to reading SIX WICKED REASONS. The premise sounded interesting with many suspects on offer, however this novel did nothing but grate on my nerves. I have come across plenty of dysfunctional families in books before but this lot just were just so incredibly self-absorbed and whiny that I found them all to be utterly depressing. I had several attempts at giving this book a good go, but at around 35% I just gave up. I could spend another moment in their company.
The story centres around the dysfunctional Lattimer family. In 2008, Adam Lattimer disappeared without a trace, presumed dead. This devastated the family, particularly their mother Kathleen who passed away just a year later. Now it's 2018 and the remaining siblings - Kate, James, Clio and Ryan - are all summoned back to Spanish Cove from all corners of the world. Adam has returned home.
What ensues is a bunch of adult children behaving like spoilt children. They hurl insults at each other, they nitpick, they allude to secrets the others may have...all for what? To one-up the other?
Of the remaining siblings, only Ellen has remained at home at Spanish Cove with their father Frazer. The other four escaped and did whatever they could to remain distanced from their childhood home. Then on the night they all return, Frazer holds a dinner party to commemorate the occasion...secretly summoning the only two married siblings' partners. And watch the fireworks begin! I don't know what Frazer had envisioned would happen but he just seemed totally oblivious to everyone else's feelings. But that wasn't all. It seems the dinner party held one other surprise. Frazer had met someone, a Russian widow a decade his junior, and they were to marry. Of course this threw everything into disarray. The children had no idea what their father was playing at while Ellen was envisioning her inheritance being passed onto the new wife when she has devoted her life to this house!
Frazer requested they all extend their stays as he had organised a celebration aboard a yacht he has rented for Monday evening. There is plenty of grumbling and refusals at first but they all acquiesce in the end. Perhaps Frazer's real reason for summoning them all was to announce his engagement and subtly let his offspring know they are being cut out of their sizable inheritance. Who knows? Frazer is a cold fish, oblivious to anyone else but himself. If he hadn't gone overboard I'm sure I would have topped him myself...had I got that far.
But as it is, on the night of the celebration aboard the rented yacht, family friend Danny notices Frazer is missing and alerts the others. In their search they discover blood on the railings and it isn't long before they find their father's body floating in the sea. What then follows is a thorough police investigation into the death. Was it an accident? Or is it murder?
All six siblings can't help but look at each other wondering - which of them killed their father.
The story is narrated by all six siblings over different time periods from 2008 and 2018 - the latter being divided into before and after. It was a little confusing at first but it didn't take long to pick up. The other voice to the story is that of Detective Downes who delves into the mystery of Frazer's untimely demise to determine what really happened.
I did feel there was a slight nod to the Queen of crime herself, Agatha Christie, with that isolation of everyone gathered together until the murderer is revealed. But that is where any similarity ended because Ms Christie would have created a much tidier version, I'm sure. However, skipping to the final chapters, the conclusion revealing the guilty party was a nice touch.
As much as I wanted to enjoy this book, I couldn't. Every single character grated on my nerves and I wanted to toss the lot of them overboard that yacht. They were so incredibly dysfunctional, which I know was the whole point, but I just couldn't spend another moment with them. As I stopped at 35% and skipped to the end to find out who the guilty party was, I failed to uncover all their secrets as they all had them. And while Jo Spain leads the reader through a wicked reason each sibling had for offing their father, I didn't discover what they were having tossed it in before reaching that point.
I appear to be in the minority with my opinion of this sorry tale, but there it is. Plenty of others have enjoyed it so please, don't take my word for it. I just couldn't bear another moment of the Lattimers.
Despite not enjoying this book, I never write an author off based on one book. While I didn't like this one, I may love the next one. This has proved true on many occasions with other authors. So therefore, I look forward to discovering more from Jo Spain in the future.
I would like to thank #JoSpain, #NetGalley and #Quercus for an ARC of #SixWickedReasons in exchange for an honest review.
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