Katy Hays is the queen of immersive, escapist suspense and this was no exception - the setting was exactly what I needed to get me excited for the summer season.

The Vipers is a dazzling murder mystery set on Capri during two time periods. A vile family called the Lingates holidays on Capri every year, despite one of the Lingates dying there under suspicious circumstances thirty years ago.
I loved Katy Hays brilliant first novel The Cloisters.
The Vipers is a quantum leap better in quality.
The Lingates are absolutely the worst people, and what they hate the most is feeling exposed. In the 1990's, Sarah Lingate goes missing after writing a scathing and revealing play about the family.
Thirty years later, another woman goes missing on the same island, while trying to expose the family.
The story skewers the super-rich perfectly. Their tendency to violence and bad behaviour when they don't get what they want.
I can't wait for this to become a miniseries. It makes The White Lotus seem soft.
I can't wait for Katy Hays third novel!

The Vipers by Katy Hays is a sun-drenched thriller soaked in secrets, lies, and legacy. This is a sharply observed and compulsively readable mystery set on the glittering cliffs of Capri—though don’t be fooled by the glamorous setting. Beneath the summer heat and breathtaking views lies a rotting core of secrets, betrayal, and generational dysfunction.

Every July, the Lingate family returns to the scene of the crime—literally. Thirty years ago, the family matriarch, renowned playwright Sarah Lingate, died under mysterious circumstances at their Capri villa. Officially, it was an accident. Unofficially, no one has ever stopped whispering about what really happened that night. When her necklace mysteriously reappears, the illusion of closure crumbles, and the past starts clawing its way into the present. Told through the perspectives of Sarah, her daughter Helen, and Helen’s assistant Lorna, the novel unravels a complex web of control, grief, and deceit. Each woman carries her own secrets, and as the story unfolds, trust erodes and paranoia takes hold. The family dynamic is exquisitely awful—self-absorbed, manipulative, and impossible to look away from. It’s like watching The White Lotus meets Succession with a murder mystery twist.

Katy Hays balances the slow simmer of psychological tension with well-timed twists and an explosive final act. The pacing starts deliberately, giving space to the family’s twisted dynamics, before accelerating toward a dramatic, satisfying conclusion. While some might wish for more of Capri’s atmosphere to shine through, the real focus here is on the venomous relationships and the buried truths threatening to destroy them.

The Vipers is a perfect summer thriller—claustrophobic, clever, and just the right amount of scandalous. If you love your mysteries tangled up in old money, buried trauma, and morally messy characters, this one’s for you. Just don’t expect to find anyone to root for.

A sun soaked mystery set in Capri and dripping with dysfunctional family dynamics, lies and scandal. Written from a multi-person perspective, we try to discover what exactly happened to wealthy playwright Sarah Lingate, how did she die, who is hiding what and why.
A great, twisty turner holiday read.
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own unbiased opinion.

Every time I thought I’d figured it out, I was wrong. Every time I thought I’d was one step ahead… I was wrong. Katy Hays had me in her grip with this one! I loved the cast of untrustworthy characters and could see myself in every environment painted, the movie in my mind was on full whack for this one

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was a twisty novel full of unlikeable characters doing unlikeable things, so it very much depends if that's your vibe as to whether you'll like it. I was interested enough to keep reading, but there were passages that I had to plough through a bit and to be honest, the ending is pretty out there so I think your enjoyment of the novel might also depend on how much you can buy that twist. But if rich people mysteries are your thing, it'll do the job!

The Vipers takes you to gorgeous Capri where a playwright died thirty years ago and her family keeps returning every July to prove it was totally an accident. The Lingates are basically the most dysfunctional rich family ever—controlling dad, drug-addled aunt, aloof uncle, and Helen, the sole heir who's desperate to escape their toxic grip. Enter family assistant Lorna, who's helping Helen break free, but surprise! Everyone has secrets. Then someone leaves an anonymous gift: the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died. Cue family meltdown and the reopening of the murder investigation. Suddenly no one trusts anyone, and all those carefully buried secrets start clawing their way to the surface.

Look, the Lingates are absolutely awful people you wouldn't want to spend five minutes with, but that's kind of the point. The Capri setting is stunning, the family drama is deliciously messy, and the tension just keeps ratcheting up until everything explodes. I totally didn't see the final twist coming—the author really nailed that reveal. It's a solid mystery with plenty of family dysfunction and enough secrets to sink a yacht. Perfect for anyone who loves their thrillers with a side of generational trauma!

Absolutely stunning novel. A totally engrossing book. Read this over two days - so hard to out down.

I absolutely adored The Cloisters by Katy Hays, a gripping and summer soaked novel set in a museum full of Renaissance art. The Vipers has a similarly heady summery feel, as the author takes us on a trip to an old house on Capri, where during a family holiday secrets are exposed, lies told and people disappear. In the Lingate family the author created a perfect mixture of compelling characters - rich, insular and paranoid - scared of exposure and scarred by a scandal they would rather forget about - the disappearance of Sarah Lingate thirty years ago. But the Lingates always come to Capri, and this year they bring two outsiders - Freddy, Helen Lingate’s boyfriend and family assistant, Lorna Moreno.

The Vipers is a history of a family in crisis, destroyed by lies and omissions of truth. Each of the characters is exposed to the bone, their flaws uncovered, their motives examined.
The story is told from the point of view of several women - Sarah, Lorna and Helen, Sarah’s daughter. Written in a beautiful sumptuous prose, infused with the relentless summer heat, the book is also a carefully constructed mystery. The investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened, the family’s secrets start resurfacing and threaten to unravel the carefully constructed facade they are all hiding behind. Exciting to the very end The Vipers is a perfect mystery to enjoy this summer.

Review copy was corrupted so unable to read or review. I’m sure it’s brilliant because Katy always is, but it was totally illegible with errors and sentences and paragraphs running together. So I had to abandon it ten pages in

The Vipers by Katy Hays

I really enjoy thrillers in the summer. I don’t go far from home during the summer holidays because my disability is affected badly by the heat. So books like this one, set in beautiful holiday locations are my summer break. Set on the island of Capri, we accompany the Lingate family on their annual pilgrimage to where Sarah Lingate, the famous playwright, lost her life. The family were investigated and absolved of any crime, but they can’t fully accept that her death was just a terrible accident. Helen Lingate was her heir, but she’s constrained by her father who controls every aspect of her life. She asks the family’s assistant Lorna Moreno, to help her escape his hold on her life. When they arrive at their villa there’s a chilling reminder of Sarah. The necklace she wore the night she died has reappeared. Family members become paranoid and Helen loses trust in everyone, even Lorna who’s past is still a mystery. The tension and mistrust build until the secrets of Sarah’s death boil over and the villa could easily be the venue for another murder.

I love dysfunctional families, especially wealthy ones, so this was a delicious treat for me. It was like pulling up a chair and listening to the neighbours having a row. The various characters are hard to like and there were times when I wished they’d all kill each other and make the world a better place. They are narcissistic, amoral and selfish. I had some empathy for Helen, who can at least see that she needs to find a way of escaping their stranglehold. But she’s been trying to work out what happened to her mother and this is a family you can’t leave, especially if you happen to have information that threatens their wealth and survival. I love how much time the author gives to establishing these dynamics before the fireworks start.

The pace really does speed up before the end of the novel and i think waiting to that point really gave the reveals and the twists more impact. I felt like I was in The White Lotus final episode. I’d have liked a bit more of the stunning setting to really ground the story because I did feel at times this could be anywhere. The focus was truly placed on the appalling members of those dreadful family members, constantly behaving badly while wanting to be seen as loving and close. In actuality it’s a viper’s nest of jealousy and deceit. A great holiday read.

I originally received an ARC of this book but the file was corrupted and I was unable to read it. As a result I had to wait until it was released and I could get my own copy to be able to read and review it.

After loving Hays’ debut The Cloisters I was really looking forward to this one. Where that first book is very much playing in the ‘dark academia’ pool, dipping into secret societies and hinting at magic and occult goings-on, this is a much more straightforward thriller.

Initially I was really enjoying this. Hays’ writing is strong and her version of Capri is richly realised. The layers of the mystery are stacked together in a way that’s intriguing and made me want to keep reading long into the small hours of the morning, and the ticking clock chapter headers telling us Lorna was going to disappear injected a really nice meta-level of tension into everything.

Unfortunately, once that disappearance happens at around the halfway mark, things start to unravel a little. I’d been enjoying Lorna’s point of view and her character, and to have her suddenly ripped out of the book - even though we know it’s coming from chapter one - was a little jarring. I never really settled into the voice of the new narrator after that point, and felt myself longing for a return to the first half.

In addition to that, I wasn’t particularly satisfied by the way the various threads woven into the first half of the novel are resolved. The book gives us multiple ‘reveals’, giving us explanations of what happened that are later revealed to be false, and it all becomes a bit wearying. I started to feel like I was being told a bit of a shaggy dog story, with twists for the sake of twists that didn’t really mean anything. The novel ends with a pair of revelations that didn’t feel earned, and that made everything that preceded them feel a little pointless.

It’s definitely a fun read, and if I’d churned through it in a couple of hours on a sun lounger while on holiday I think I would have told you that I enjoyed it a lot. But as it is I thought it was just fine, and a bit of a disappointment after a very strong debut novel.

This is definitely a good twisty summer read. I enjoyed the drama of the current timeline and the present day and how they intertwine together. The ending had quite a few plot twists and I didn’t really expect any of them. I also enjoyed Katy Hays writing, very engaging. I read this in 24 hours!

This seems to also be published under the title ‘Saltwater’. Set on Capri, this ia a mystery with reveals that I was not expecting. It does seem to drag a little in places and for me, there was not quite the tension that I would have liked, but overall the twists were worth it. In 1992, when Helen Lingate was 3 years old, her mother, Sarah, died. The death was ruled as accidental even though her body being found at the bottom of a cliff was suspicious. And to prove all doubters wrong, every uyer the Lingates return to Capri. Moving on 30 years, Helen arrives with her boyfriend, Freddy, her father Richard and her uncle, Marcus and his wife Naomi. Also accompanying them is Lorna, who is not only Marcus’ assistant, she has also developed a friendship with Helen. On Capri are Renata who used to be housekeeper for the Lingates during their stay. After Sarah’s death she left their employ and became babysitter for little Helen who became friends with Renata’s son. Ciro, who was the same age. On this trip two things happen, the necklace that Sarah was wearing when she died suddenly reappears and Lorna disappears. The timing causes Sarah’s case to be re-investigated. Told in multiple POVs - Sarah, Lorna and Naomi, we are flipped between present day and 1992. As I sai, this is a twisty read and the feeling of suffocation that Helen experiences, the way she is being controlled is well written. Capri itself also becomes another character in the novel - it is alive. The Lingates are not likeable - these are rich people using their wealth to get their own way. An enjoyable read.

Thirty years ago the Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Sarah Lingate died on Capri in mysterious circumstances, while holidaying with her husband Richard and his brother Marcus, the heirs to a vast oil fortune. Though it’s true that behind every great fortune lies a great crime – in this case, an ancestral Lingate swindled a widow out of her oil fields – the brothers have always denied any involvement in Sarah’s death, proudly returning to the island every summer with their heads held high. As the family now return to Capri for their annual trip, Sarah and Richard’s daughter Helen is plotting her escape, concocting a plan to free herself from the Lingates’ influence and escape with the help of Lorna, her uncle’s personal assistant. The family arrive at their holiday home and gather for drinks when a delivery arrives: someone has sent Helen the distinctive necklace that Sarah was wearing when she died, and seismic ripples tear through the brothers as they realise the gift’s significance. The tension builds as the brothers lock themselves away to discuss the necklace, but readers will already be aware that the clock is ticking as each chapter begins with a countdown: 36 hours to Lorna’s disappearance… This shimmering, superbly descriptive, expertly-plotted novel is a rewarding and suspense-packed read: a welcome dose of balmy Mediterranean sunshine for any readers currently navigating the peaks and troughs of a British winter.

There is no doubt that Katy Hayes is a talented writer. Her debut, The Cloisters, was amazing and I've been looking forward to reading her next novel.

However I found it a little disappointing. While I love the writing style, for me, it just didn't work for this type of novel. I found the pacing excruciatingly slow which made it feel like a slog to get through. The twists were surprising but I felt like they all came together in a rush in the last half a dozen chapters.

I did love the setting of this novel and the plot was an interesting one, with a cast of unsavoury and unlikeable characters. With the right balance in pacing this novel could have been amazing.

Thank you Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for providing me with a complimentary copy for review purposes.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for Goodreads.

Firstly I loved the vibes of the family villa on Capri and the alternating timelines/POVs, even if it did mean I kept getting mixed up between Richard and Marcus in my head. Normally I really like books written in mixed media but other than the newspaper clipping at the start detailing the police report, I didn't feel like the others added much to the story. That being said I would've liked some more diverse media like maps of the island, audio transcripts and other evidence in the investigations. I do think the first 80% or so dragged and none of the reveals in that time were really surprising to me. I did like the last 20% and I probably should've seen the final twists coming but I didn't. Finally I wasn't expecting any of the characters to be likeable but all of them were downright unbearable and the story was more rich people being d***s than a thriller/murder mystery

Thank you so much to the author, Netgalley and Random House UK for providing me with an eARC in return for an honest review. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

Sarah died in 1992, she fell, or was pushed off a cliff on Capri. Now, thirty years later, her daughter Helen wants to know what happened to her mother. She asks Lorna, her uncle's assistant for help, because both know her father and her uncle and aunt are hiding something. They are not the only ones with secrets. And things get stranger when the necklace arrives that Sarah wore on the night she died and then Lorna is suddenly missing.

It's a thriller that is more about rich people behaving badly than about solving a murder. The characters were rather flat. There were a lot of red herrings early on so that I knew what happened in 1992 long before the big reveal, which made the story drag on for me.

If you're on the edge of your seat waiting for each new White Lotus episode, this is the book for you. Rich people behaving badly in luxury locations is a trope/subgenre/not sure what to call it that I thoroughly enjoy, on screen or on page. A bit of a guilty pleasure. I had loved The Cloisters and though this is very different, it has the same skilled writing and clever twists (many of them). The characters aren't really likable but I don't think they were meant to be; pretty much like most White Lotus characters, I just enjoy their outrageous, messy, dysfunctional dynamics. I will continue to watch for new releases by Katy Hays!

3.5 upped to 4
I wasn't a huge fan of the Cloister, a story full of potential but with some dubious senteces about Renaissance art like "early Renaissance not interesting" (the Italian in me was listing Botticelli/Masaccio/lippi/Piero della Francesca")
i was curious about this one. There's a lot of subplots, some parts are gripping, some seems to drag a bit.
It's not my cup of tea but I think a lot of people will appreciate it
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine