Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 12 June 2021

"Blackwater" by Conn Iggulden

An audio novella. The first-person narrator Davey walks into the sea at Brighton, fully clothed. His older brother on the beach calls him back. Davey suspects that his brother had killed the school bully years before. For a few chapters we catch up with the back story. Carol his wife is serially unfaithful. Her most recent stud is a gangland boss. Davey got roughed up by his thug, because the boss wanted Carol full-time. Carol told the boss she's not interested and left for a few days. Davey then had 2 fingers broken by the thug. He contacted his brother, wrote a suicide note and walked into the water.

They hatch a plan to tempt the boss and thug to the house, kill them and make it look like self-defence. Davey phones the boss to say that Carol is dead (the baddies could have checked to see if Carol was at work (see was!) before coming round). His brother kills them, then he kills his brother (who, we now learn, had slept with Carol). The fratricide had been planned. Davey wonders if his life would be easier without Carol too.

Other reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment