Neve finds her lover murdered and tries to remove all sign of herself from his life. Friends, colleagues and family all circle around and her struggle to stay on top of her lies and work out what's happening deepen.

A really good solid psychological crime novel with characters that really breath and live. I literally couldn't put it down and was 30 mins late for dinner.

When Neve Connolly finds the murdered body of a man - a man she knows, in a place where Neve shouldn’t be - her first instinct is to call the police.

Her second, quickly overriding it, is to protect herself and her family.

What Neve decides to do next will lead her into what can only - cliches notwithstanding - be described as a tangled web of deceit. Can she hold her nerve?

Life at home is far from straightforward. Troubled teenage daughter Mabel is causing her parents no end of grief (possibly out of revenge for having been called Mabel). Husband Fletcher is prone to depression and disappointment. And nobody ever remembers to feed the guinea pig.

As the murder is discovered and investigations commence, Neve has to contend with the inscrutable DCI Hitching, who always seems to know more than he’s letting on. Then there’s the murder victim’s wife, delivering potentially loaded comments, and his assistant doing something similar. Meanwhile, a seemingly endless stream of old friends are apparently taking up permanent residence in Neve’s house.

Nicci French is excellent at conveying the feeling of being trapped in a situation at least partly of ones own making; constructing a shaky edifice of often flimsy lies which it seems inevitable will come crashing down at any moment, while having to somehow appear to be functioning normally both in public and in private. I’m not sure I could do it.

I’m not sure this is Nicci French’s best - Catch Me When I Fall and Secret Smile are always the ones I remember most - but it’s undeniably a compelling read.