An audio book.
2 ex-pat families from Singapore are staying on a tourist island.
- Eliza has a husband Noah (lawyer) and twins. Eliza says she fell in love with Noah when her mother killed herself. Noah knows that actually she cut him off for a year after the suicide.
- Adam (a thriller writer - his father was a literature lecturer. He's only really fancied Eliza since he started writing his latest book.) and Lou have a 9 y.o. boy Raffie and a breast-feeding baby. She plans to leave before the end of the holiday - she's on tranquillisers.
Chapters are from the PoV of each of the 4 adults. Third-person.
When 3 of them dive in a wreck, a fish bomb scares them. Adam's suspicious about the organiser, Lars.
Lou loses her temper with a tourist who complains about her noisy baby. Noah punches Adam for showing too much interest in Eliza. Adam, very drunk, goes off late at night with a teenage girl. Nothing happens but he sees Lars with a gun in heated discussion with locals. Back at the hut, Lou hits him. He goes off in the kayak. Next morning he hasn't returned.
There are search parties. A monsoon's arrriving, so they can't leave the island. Chay, a local, has disappeared too. Raffie disappears. There's an explosion in the jungle, a fire. Lou goes in there to find Raffie, and loses consciousness. She's saved. Chay's body is found. Raffie is found. He says he went to find his father. He'd heard Lars angry. He'd found a shed of dynamite and had decided to blow it all up to save the fish.
Adam's body is found. Eliza explains to Noah that Adam's father was her father too. She was going to tell Adam about it during the holiday. Inspector Khan (criminology degree from the LSE). He explains that Chay and Lars were involved with dynamite crime. Adam might have stumbled upon Chay's secret horde. Khan suggested that she return to London.
The penultimate chapter is Adam's, his last minutes in a beach. Eliza came to him.
The final chapter is by Eliza, a year later. They now live in London. Lou is marrying a marine biologist from the island. Eliza realises that Khan knew what she had done. She reveals that she helped Adam die. Why?
A slow start. Tensions between the 4 main adults are easily generated.
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