The Cliff House takes places on a remote Scottish island on a hen weekend and it’s really about the fact that we have different levels of friendship,” he explains. From the top, the plot was where this story soared. Starting off as a slow burn as the women arrived and their relationships were established, things really got underway about a quarter of the way into the book. From there on out, the revolving door of multiple POVs kept me just as bamboozled as the characters themselves. And while each of their individual thoughts could have been confusing, they were anything but. In fact, the way it was written actually felt much more like a single POV storyline, but allowed for a near omniscient perspective. And for this plot to be a hit, that was a definite must.

As a writer I do plot things out quite carefully but you always need room to allow the characters to breathe – it’s always a kind a balancing act. East Neuk Literary Festival When one of the party mysteriously goes missing on the first night, Jennifer realizes she has made a terrible mistake: she has assembled this disparate bunch of women and the only thing they have in common is her… The isolated-place murder mystery is one I’ve always enjoyed, and I’ve liked quite a few of Brookmyre’s books in the past, so I thought it would be fun to give this one a try. Our isolated place is a small Scottish island with a luxury manor house that is rented out for retreats and small gatherings. This time it’s a weekend-long hen party before Jen’s wedding to her fiancé Zaki. Instead of a close circle of friends, she’s invited women from various stages of her life, from her childhood to her young adulthood, and including her sister-in-law-to-be, Samira, and her sister-in-law from her first marriage, Beattie. Some of these women already know each other and some don’t. Two, in particular, know each other and have bad blood between them from when one, Michelle, dumped her bandmates, including Helena, to become a solo act, going on to fortune and celebrity. It also turns out that Beattie is hostile to Jen, thinking that she wrongfully accused her first husband and Beattie’s brother, Jason, of being mixed up in criminal activity before he disappeared 10 years earlier. That evening they’re all letting loose with a few drinks as they wait for dinner. Before they know it, however, small things start to trigger the group and a disagreement breaks out. That’s not surprising, of course, given the fact that Jen’s venomous ex sister-in-law and her gossipy future sister-in-law are in attendance. Adding to the fray are her two best friends from childhood—one of whom is a pop star sensation while the other is her publicly ditched ex-bandmate. Throw in their tennis coach and the group fashionista and fireworks were always sure to be on the horizon.

Locked room location

Agatha Christie found And Then There Were None, her story of 10 strangers invited to an island off the Devon coast, her hardest book to write. “I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been,” she wrote in her autobiography. But Christie’s struggles failed to put off future crime writers: from PD James’s The Lighthouse to, more recently, Lucy Foley’s The Guest List, the charms of a closed, dangerous setting, where everyone is a suspect, are just too tempting for mystery novelists. There are dozens of novels based on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but Christopher Brookmyre's ingenious take is by far the best I have read. He makes you feel for and fear each character. He keeps you guessing until the very end—after an avalanche of revelations and twists. " - The Times (Book of the Month) When this book started I found it to be intriguing, atmospheric and it had a lot a tension. I was enjoying it and found the characters to be well defined and was never confused as to who was who (as I find that can happen when there are a lot of characters in a story) As well as Jen, there's the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law.

Firstly, Moira! What? For a years-ahead booked super luxurious resort, there is a crazy old lady roaming around? And why? Just.. no. As well as Jen, there’s the pop diva and the estranged ex-bandmate, the tennis pro and the fashion guru, the embittered ex-sister-in-law and the mouthy future sister-in-law. Chris Brookmyre's latest psychological thriller is set on Clachan Geal, a small remote Scottish island on the edge of the Atlantic, a beautiful, windswept place on which is located an exclusive, luxurious and expensive mansion for hire, with attractions such as an infinity pool and golf course. Jen is a successful business woman who has recently sold Muffin Finer, although she remains the head of the company, leaving her an extremely wealthy woman. She is engaged to be married for the second time to her fiance, Zaki Hussain, although she has a few niggles about him. She has booked the island mansion from the owner, property developer, single mother Lauren, for the celebration of her hen night with a group of female friends, each of whom it is trailed from the beginning, are women with closely guarded secrets.Chris Brookmyre recently sat down with The Big Thrill discussing his latest domestic thriller, THE CLIFF HOUSE. Chris Brookmyre is a prolific author of crime fiction and one half of the highly successful Ambrose Parry writing partnership along with his wife Marisa Haetzman. To celebrate her upcoming second marriage, Jen has organized a bachelorette party to end all parties. Stealing away with six of her friends, she’s booked an exclusive mansion on a posh private island off the coast of Scotland. Flown out by a private helicopter, they land to find the accommodations just as marvelous as promised. The only hitch is one that they easily overlook upon arrival. As stunning as the locale is, they’re on a remote island with only one way off—and they’re so very far from home. I still enjoyed it, but I have read better executions of a similar story, like Guest List, for example.

My first book by this author. It’s a dark twisted thriller set on an isolated Scottish island. A hen party who has made their way here find their weekend of luxury destroyed when a murder is committed. There’s supposedly no one else on the island, so who is responsible. When an anonymous call comes through for one of the party to confess a sin, they all begin to look at each other, and themselves, to try to work out who should be confessing. I do plot things out quite carefully but you always need room to allow the characters to breathe – it’s always a kind a balancing act.” The chapters alternate between the viewpoints of each of the protagonists and, when they split up in search of the kidnapped woman, each begins to wonder if they’ve been paired with the intended target, but, at the same time, guiltily accepting the target could be them. He was also delighted to have the opportunity to explore a part of Scotland that he doesn’t know well, even if the weather wasn’t terribly welcoming:When one of the party mysteriously goes missing on the first night, Jennifer realizes she has made a terrible mistake: she has assembled this disparate bunch of women and the only thing they have in common is her . . . The whole thing felt pretty stale from the start to be honest; a party in a cut-off island location where several people have “history” and the organiser is worried about how everyone will get on...seriously? Again? And then the first part of the book seemed to go on forever as each person arrived and we very slowly learned a bit more about them, their relationship to the others and that each one has a Dark Secret and is worried about That Thing They Did being exposed – without, of course, telling us what the Secret or the Thing is. I got to the eye-rolling stage fairly early on in the book – and it got worse as absurdities and clichéd situations mounted up, so I was muttering “for heaven’s sake” (I paraphrase) pretty regularly until eventually I gave up because life was too short. Thinking about The Cliff House in particular, he says: “It’s very much about, if you put a whole lot of people on a small island and they realise somebody dangerous is on the loose and you’ve got this contained environment, the reader can be sure that all the components are already there.

You are often inspired by locations – sometimes it is imagining what might take place in that location or sometimes it is something about the atmosphere that suggests something. Jen is soon to be married to Zaki and she has booked a very luxurious retreat for her hen weekend. She is joined at this remote Scottish island by a few friends from the tennis club (Nicolette and Kennedy), two of her oldest friends (Helena and Michelle), her soon to be sister-in-law Samira and Beattie, the sister-in-law of her first marriage to Jason.

Cosy Conversations on the Coast

As we talk on the phone, he is preparing for an event in Edinburgh with his appearance at Conversations on the Coast coming up next week. Parts are quite chilling especially about who is controlling the narrative although I do guess correctly I also enjoy how all the secrets come leaking out as water through a sieve deepening the plot and the mystery of who the ultimate target is. I feel like the twist in the book was good and there were believable red herrings leading up to that point. I could have done without so much of the inner monologues and the dynamics between characters, as they took me out of the action sometimes. I found Jen to be a mostly likable character, and felt like I understood the intentions of all of the characters, which seemed realistic even if not likable. The end of the book tied up everything a bit too neatly in my opinion but I didn’t hate it. The characters were cool, I learned a lot about them, which was kind of the point. But I felt like some of their motivations and choices were not fully believable and that's ok, I have no issue with suspending my belief, but - something it was a little too far-fetched how serious things were are how everyone just seemed so ok to forgive and forget so easily, no questions asked.