Cultural Dessert

'That Night' by Gillian McAllister

27 June 2024

I discovered the thriller writer Gillian McAllister in 2022 and really enjoyed her novels ‘Wrong Place Wrong Time’ (reviewed here July 2022) and ‘How to Disappear’ (reviewed here in January 2023). I have just finished reading her 2021 book ‘That Night’ which is another clever, twisty, tense, family thriller. This time Gillian McAllister challenges us to ponder how we would respond if a beloved sibling needed our help to cover up a crime. Like Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ this is one of those stories where one mistake mushrooms, as each small act to try to rectify the situation makes it exponentially worse. And each lie told requires more lies to back it up, to the point that it is hard to remember what is real. ‘That Night’ is a cleverly constructed novel that plays tricks with the reader as it recounts events through the point of view of different family members, alternating timelines between ‘then’ (the initial crime and its aftermath) and ‘now’. There are some bold twists, carefully disguised. And Gillian McAllister is brilliant at making you both scared to keep reading but unable to put the book down.

Labels: Books

posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:12 pm