The Reunion by MJ Arlidge and Steph Broadribb
A skull looks up at Jennie from the trench, but it’s not the chalk-white bone and grimacing teeth that send her reeling.
It’s the heart-shaped gold pendant, its delicate chain snapped in two. The necklace Hannah never took off. It can’t be Hannah. But it is.
When Jennie Whitmore arrives at her school reunion, she immediately regrets her decision. Why would she choose to surround herself with people who were never nice to her? Who still aren’t, even now she’s a police officer? The only person who truly looked out for her all those years ago was charming, beautiful Hannah. Until the day she disappeared.
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Jennie is ready to finally put White Cross Academy behind her, the old school building demolished the morning after the party. But with the demolition comes a call: a teenage girl’s remains have been found on the grounds.
The instant drop in Jennie’s gut tells her that the remains might be Hannah’s, but when she’s called in to examine them, the truth becomes undeniable. Hannah didn’t run away and abandon Jenny thirty years ago; in fact, she never left White Cross at all.
Suddenly, Jennie has a murder to solve. The murder of her best friend. But can she do so before her colleagues discover just how closely connected she is to the victim? Before a mystery stalker makes good on his threats to silence her for good?
My Review
I have to admit that I got this so wrong. I had an idea, but I was way off the mark. I’d love to tell you what it was, but that would be a spoiler of sorts, as in ‘it wasn’t that or even close’.
Hannah was Jennie Whitmore’s best friend. They had planned to run away to London together, get away from her alcoholic mum and Hannah’s violent dad and start a new life. Hannah with her beautiful face and long legs was going to be a model. But Hannah never showed and Jennie was bereft. Where was Hannah and why had she let Jennie down?
Thirty years later and Jennie is a senior police officer in the town where they both lived. But the school they attended, White Cross Academy, is about to be demolished. Then a body is discovered in the school basement and Jennie fears it’s Hannah. But when her heart-shaped gold pendant is found near the remains, Jennie knows it’s her. She didn’t abandon her best friend. She was murdered.
And so we go back and forth as Jennie has to interview the other members of the sixth form darkroom group, Lottie, Elliott, Rob and Simon, the friends who met in the basement in their final year at the school. Jennie was a keen photographer, having inherited a camera from her late father. Elliott helped her learn how to use it and develop the pictures she took. It was her pictures that Hannah used in her modelling portfolio.
But in order to remain in charge of the case, Jennie has to hide the depth of her involvement and friendships within the group. And she has to treat her old friends as possible suspects in Hannah’s murder. There were two original suspects – Hannah’s violent father and the creepy art teacher. Jennie wants it to be one of them, but she can’t be biased.
It’s a shocking story of murder, betrayal and secrets. How can this group of old friends that were so important to her in her teens be responsible for the death of her best friend? But did she ever really know any of them, even Hannah? I flew through the book over a weekend, determined to get to the truth. It wasn’t at all what I expected.
Many thanks to @Tr4cyF3nt0n for inviting me to be part of the #CompulsiveReaders #blogtour and to NetGalley for an ARC.
About the Authors
MJ Arlidge has worked in television for the last twenty years, specialising in high-end drama production, including prime-time crime serials Silent Witness, Torn, The Little House and, most recently, the hit ITV show Innocent. In 2015 his audiobook exclusive Six Degrees of Assassination was a number-one bestseller. His debut thriller, Eeny Meeny, was the UK’s bestselling crime debut of 2014 and has been followed by ten more DI Helen Grace thrillers – all Sunday Times bestsellers.
Steph Broadribb was born in Birmingham and grew up in Buckinghamshire. Most of her working life has been spent between the UK and USA. As her alter ego – Crime Thriller Girl – she indulges her love of all things crime fiction by blogging at www.crimethrillergirl.com
Steph is an alumni of the MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) at City University London, and she trained as a bounty hunter in California. She lives in Buckinghamshire surrounded by horses, cows and chickens.
