Petra's Reviews > Rush of Blood

I still haven't read any of Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne books, but this is the second standalone novel that I've read following Die of Shame last year. In a similar fashion, Rush of Blood is about a small group of people, their dysfunctional relationships, their secrets, and enactments of pretence.
Here, we have three British couples who meet while vacationing in Florida. On the last day of their vacation, a young girl goes missing from their resort. We hear from different people including the young girl's mother, the Florida detective in charge of the case, and a young British trainee detective. But the focus is on the three couples who continue to meet up back in Britain. It is clear that one of them is guilty of abducting the girl. I kept changing my mind several times as to who that was and the plot provided a couple of good surprises. The final twist was a little too obvious though. None of these characters had any endearing features. There is a lot of quite mundane stuff going on. Dinner parties, exchanges between the couples at home etc. This isn't an electrifying crime thriller or intricate police procedural, but Mark Billingham is such a great people observer, I truly enjoyed following these flawed characters and their antics. If you enjoy stories about complex relationships and the sometimes odd dynamics between people, you'll like this. If you need characters you can feel sympathetic towards or you can relate to, forget it. My only minor niggle, it took me quite a while until I was able to differentiate between the three women and three men and I could finally remember who was married to whom etc.
I received a copy via NetGalley.