It should have been the best day of his life. After years as a writer, Grady Green has finally hit the big time, his latest book being on the New York Times Bestseller list. But the night he receives the news is the same night that his wife, Abby, stopped her car on the cliff-top road on the way home because of a body lying in the road… and she was never seen again.

One year later, Grady is a complete mess, unable to write a word. Consumed with uncertainty as to his wife’s fate, he is completely directionless until his agent, convinced he still has a great novel inside him, sends him to the remote – the very remote – Scottish island of Amberly to a cabin formerly owned by another of her clients.

But Amberly is a place haunted by spirits and cries in the dark. And apparently a woman who looks exactly like Grady’s wife…

Yet another Stockport Noir 2026 author to tick off the list, joining Vaseem Khan, Rebecca Philipson, David Goodman, Sam Holland and Rosie Sandler (who didn’t speak but I did meet her). I’ve read Alice’s work before with Sometimes I Lie and I Know Who You Are, her first two books but for some reason, I’ve never returned to her work. So when the conference reminded me how impressed I was with the first two books, I thought it was time to check in on Alice’s latest, just as it’s been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Book Of The Year.

And as with all of Alice’s books, they are very hard to review without dropping too many hints as to what is going on. It’s a very atmospheric tale that keeps the pages turning as events become more and more bizarre.

I think at the end of the day, it’s all going to come down to the ending – does the pay-off match the grippingly effective build-up? I think for me it mostly works – there’s something about the island that I’m baffled as to how Grady doesn’t notice it – and there’s an inevitability about some of the reveals. But the author does a good job of tying things together while still springing some surprises – and, as with the others that I’ve read – a dark, dark ending.

I’d say more, but I honestly think that the less you know, the better. The characters are three-dimensional, the setting is evocative and there’s a lovely dog who definitely makes it to the end of the book. I don’t think it’s easy to sustain a book that is, for the most part, a slow build-up of creepiness, but Alice does it with aplomb here.

So well worth your time, a top-notch thriller. If you’ve got Prime Reading, you can borrow this one for free at the moment, so why not give it a go? But while you’re there, don’t read the blurbs too carefully – I’m glad I didn’t as I think there’s a hint or two that might have steered me to the twists too early…