The Red House
by Roz Watkins
Narrated by Lauren Moakes; David Hartley
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
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Pub Date 22 Jun 2023 | Archive Date 31 Mar 2024
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Description
Only the killer holds the key. . .
A Sunday Times Book of the Summer
IT WAS THE CRIME THAT SHOCKED A NATION.
The Flowers were the perfect family. Until the day fifteen-year-old Joseph shot dead his parents and baby brother whilst his younger sister Eve hid. The family home became known as ‘The Red House’, the place where the walls were covered in blood.
THEY THOUGHT THEY HAD THE KILLER.
No one knows why Joseph murdered his family: the following day he crashed his car and has been in a coma for two decades. Eve’s always known he did it; she saw the crime, after all.
WHAT IF THEY WERE WRONG?
Now an adult, Eve is forced to re-examine her memories when disturbing new evidence about the case comes to light. Rumour has it that Joseph created a hidden level in his game that night, which might hold the key.
But if Joseph didn’t do it, then the killer’s still out there – and they’re coming back for the girl who escaped. . .
’A masterclass in pace and intrigue. Tense, immersive, clever, surprising and unique’
Andrea Mara, author of No One Saw a Thing
‘I wanted to immediately start reading again to check the very clever clues… A clever and engaging mystery with a resolution that will completely blow you away’
Susi Holliday, author of The Hike
’You won’t know where you’re going until the last page. A genuinely delicious mystery’
Christina Dalcher, author of Vox
***
Readers are LOVING The Red House:‘Definitely a contender for any year’s book of the year’
‘An emotional rollercoaster of a ride. . .I could not put it down’
‘Wow. Just wow’
‘Carefully crafted plot and well-drawn characters made this an intelligent thriller that had me hooked’
‘A brilliant thriller from the first page until the last’
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format, Unabridged |
| ISBN | 9780008422820 |
| PRICE | £16.99 (GBP) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Annie W, Book Trade Professional
This novel kept me guessing right to the end. I downloaded the audioARC from NetGalley and was instantly drawn in by the character of Eve, whose parents and younger brother were killed by her older brother, who has spent over a decade in a coma, cared for by their grandmother in the creepy and ill-fated Red House.
All Eve wants is to live an ordinary, anonymous life. She’s found a job in an independent bookshop, working for the kindly Marcus. Unfortunately, before the family tragedy, her brother had written a video game that remains popular, with gamers desperate to find the Easter Egg to the secret level in the game.
As if this weren’t challenging enough, Eve suffers from face blindness, a condition she keeps secret for fear of being predated upon after two boys at her school switched places with each other and she was almost raped. She has not even told the police, which is significant because when she was found in the Red House after the murders, she told them her brother, Joseph, was the killer.
We join the story just as she is starting to doubt whether or not her five-year-old self did see her brother or just someone who looked very like him. Meanwhile, her brother is starting to gain consciousness, and she discovers he can communicate by moving his eyes - the rest of his body being paralysed and vulnerable.
It’s a tense read, helped by the extreme likability of Eve’s character. We want to see her succeed and find some sort of resolution to her doubts about what happened. Part of the story is narrated by her brother, locked inside his unmoving body, unable to remember what happened and terrified in case he really is a killer.
It’s all extremely well-written with an amazing sense of pace. I found myself quite breathless in some parts, the tension was ratcheted so high, and then the next moment I would be laughing at one of Eve’s charmingly self-deprecating stories about her hapless confusion between people who expect her to recognise them.
The face blindness is no joke though, even though it does allow humour to shine through. It’s a key component of the crime and how the murderer got away with it, and by the end, even Eve isn’t laughing at her social awkwardness.
Highly recommended. One of my books of the year for 2023 (and we’re only in June).
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