The Boyfriend by Kerry Wilkinson
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic thriller, Suspense
Read: 11th June 2022
Published: 16th June 2022
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
He went missing when you were sixteen. Was it all your fault?
Trembling with shock, Jodie picks up the old T-shirt. She hasn’t seen it for twenty years. Her boyfriend had been wearing it – her Ben – the day he went missing. The last time anyone saw him alive.
After her dad’s funeral, all Jodie wants is to clear out her childhood home as quickly as possible and get back to life with her son. But a terrifying discovery changes everything she knew about her kind, loving father.
Her boyfriend Ben went missing when they were just teenagers. His parents still stare out the window desperately waiting for him to come home. So how did the T-shirt he was wearing when Jodie saw him walk away from their last date end up in her father’s attic?
The search for answers leads Jodie to an old family friend who knows all her father’s secrets. She can’t shake his questions about her older brother, and the real reason their dad left everything to Jodie, not him. But when a stranger begins to follow her around their little town, and a deadly fire breaks out in her home, it’s clear someone will do anything to stop Jodie finding the truth about Ben's disappearance. Has Jodie unknowingly put her own son in terrible danger?
An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with a heart-stopping twist, about how even the people we love can hide the darkest secrets. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train, I Am Watching You and Shari Lapena.
MY THOUGHTS:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Kerry Wilkinson's latest compelling thriller THE BOYFRIEND.
I'm a huge fan of Kerry Wilkinson and never pass up an opportunity to read his standalone thrillers, with each of them suitably different from the previous. I guess what I love most about Wilkinson's books is his witty humour. It is a little dark at times but there are those throwaway lines that just make me chuckle whenever I see them nestled within the pages of an otherwise serious matter.
Jodie Parker is a divorced single mum to the despairingly monosyllabic Owen living in the town in which she was born and grew up in. Everyone knows each other, everyone has dated almost everyone else or known those who have dated them, has grown up with the same people and the same neighbours for decades in a town where not much anything changes. Except if you go to prison for twenty years and come out to find everything has changed.
And now Jodie's life as she knows it is about to come crumbling down...if it hasn't started to already. Her father has passed away after a sudden heart attack and she is left to pick up the pieces, organise his funeral, wake and the clearing out of the house that she and her brother grew up in and of which she is now the sole beneficiary. Much to the annoyance of her sister-in-law Samantha who is now threatening a lawsuit to see her hubby and Jodie's brother Mike share the inheritance. But Jodie's father had a reason for making her the sole beneficiary and she needed to respect that.
Then one day she is in the attic, that she was never allowed into as a child, clearing out some long-forgotten boxes up there when she comes across one labelled in her father's hand "KEEP". She opens it up expecting to find treasures from his public life as town mayor and a pillar of the community, but nothing can prepare her for seeing the green fabric of her long missing boyfriend's t-shirt. The same one he had been wearing the last time she saw him...the night he disappeared.
Jodie was sixteen when Ben disappeared after waving goodbye to her to walk home through "Bramble Alley", as it was locally known. He was her first boyfriend and the love of her life. Part of her has never gotten over the loss of him and everyone, their parents mainly, expected the two to marry and raise a family of their own. But that all ended one night when Ben walked into the alley and was never seen again. No body was found, no trace of him was left behind...except in the van of a local man Paul McIntosh, the same van Jodie had seen near the churchyard on the night Ben disappeared. McIntosh arrested, tried and found guilty of murdering Ben and sentenced to prison. Case closed.
Except now Paul McIntosh had been released from prison and Jodie now held the last piece of clothing Ben had been wearing. So why did her dad have it? And why was it hidden away stashed in his attic? Jodie had so many questions she didn't know who to ask or where to look for answers.
And then things began to happen. Someone broke into her father's house - now her house - one night, although nothing was taken, and then tried to burn the same house down by pouring accelerant through the letterbox along with a match, resulting in only damaging the door beyond repair. Someone knows there is something in her father's house and they want it...but what? And who? And has her father's life all these years been a lie?
Added to her worries is her monosyllabic son Owen, who spends an inordinate amount of time playing violent video games online when he's home and bullying younger kids when he's not. Jodie barely recognises her son anymore and when she tries to speak to him she only gets grunts in reply. His father is useless, cosying up to him and playing video games with him rather than parenting him.
But nothing will prepare Jodie for the truth of what happened to Ben twenty years ago or the wheels that have already been set in motion of what is to come. Is she strong enough to speak up or will she hide the truth forever?
THE BOYFRIEND is a very different thriller in which it does begin rather slowly where Jodie goes through the motions of her life in the wake of her father's death and generally feeling sorry for herself. She doesn't even excel at parenting either, leaving a troubled Owen to his own devices most of the time. When she does try to confront him, I'm not surprised he barely takes any notice of her as I doubt she has taken a lot of notice of him in general before. Her life has been a series of unfortunate choices and bad decisions, Owen the result of one, her life as a single mum another. She isn't actually all that likeable but by the end I did really feel for her.
With its slow start, it is easy to see why THE BOYFRIEND fails to go anywhere in the beginning and it is easy to become frustrated with the irritating characters and the lack of suspense. But it does pick up and while it doesn't really become a fast paced ride the tension throughout is palpable as you try to unravel the complexities Jodie is faced with. There are many clues peppered throughout but you have to keep your wits about you to pick up on them. Wilkinson did not, however, hoodwink me this time.
Unlike other thrillers, THE BOYFRIEND elicits a range of emotions from anger to disbelief to heartwrenching sorrow. It is more emotional than most and extremely devastating as Jodie is left to question everything she thought she knew and we, as the reader, witness her unravelling.
While it is not the thrill-ride some fans are looking for or expecting, it is most certainly a thought-provoking and emotional read all the same. It also is an example of Wilkinson's diversity in his skillful plotting and writing.
A good solid read, THE BOYFRIEND is out 16th June and perfect for fans of dark domestic thrillers.
I would like to thank #KerryWilkinson, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheBoyfriend in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Kerry Wilkinson has had No.1 crime bestsellers in the UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. He has also written two top-20 thrillers in the United States. His book, Ten Birthdays, won the RNA award for Young Adult Novel of the Year in 2018 and Close To You won the International Thriller Award for best ebook in 2020.
As well as his million-selling Jessica Daniel series, Kerry has written the Silver Blackthorn trilogy - a fantasy-adventure serial for young adults - a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter, plus numerous standalone novels. He has been published around the world in more than a dozen languages.
Originally from the county of Somerset, Kerry spent way too long living in the north of England, picking up words like 'barm' and 'ginnel'.
When he's short of ideas, he rides his bike, hikes up something, or bakes cakes. When he's not, he writes it all down.
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