"The murder after the night before" by Katy Brent

An audio book.

Molly Monroe, 32, wakes with a man she doesn't know. She doesn't recall what happened the night before. She works for a girl's magazine. Posy, her flatmate, is a real journalist. Patrick, a top lawyer, lives with his wife Trudy and kids next door. There's something suspicious about him.

When she goes into work she learns that a porn video clip of her from the night before has gone viral. When she is sent home she finds Posy's body in the bath, and an empty wine bottle on the floor. The police think it was an accident.

She's beginning to have flashbacks from the night before. When her mail starts working again she discovers that she and Posy had an argument. Posy had been investigating a missing girl case (Lula) and had been told by her boss Oliver to stop. She said she's left Molly a file in "the place".

She calls Jack (the new man) to keep her company. She and Posy's mother meet. She meets Posy's boss (who confirms that Posy had been sleeping with Patrick), Patrick (who says she's been with Jess, her landlord), Jess (who says it was a one-night stand), Lulu's mother (who Posy had met) and Trudy (who knew about Patrick and Posy).

The night before, she left for the works party with best work-friend Polloma who left her when she met a dishy barmaid. She was twting with Posy and was on her way to her.

She learns that Patrick, his wife, and Lulu's father went to the same university at the same time.

Lulu's mother kills her husband then herself.

Social media think that Molly's murdered Posy. She finds Posy's secret mobile with the file on it. Marilyn's voicemail reveals that Marilyn killed her daughter to protect her from the evil world. Posy had just started going out with a man from work, Josh. There's a photo of him. It's Jack. Why is he lying to her - and to the police? She tries to work out what happened on the night by going through her bank statement. There are some puzzling purchases.

She learns that Oliver and Patrick were at Uni together, and that Lula was Patrick's daughter - Chris married Marilyn when she was pregnant. Patrick helped cover up the facts of Lula's death.

She posts a statement online - a piece of serious journalism explaining the situation. Patrick threatens to kill her. Jack arrives in time to save her. She wakes in a hospital. Jake/Josh says he's an undercover agent investigating the Lulu case and that Patrick has been arrested. But he's still not confessing to murdering Posy.

Jack points out that if she disappeared, the police wouldn't investigate too hard because of the shame of the video. Was that why the video was done? Who were the men involved? Was she drugged?

Molly gets a good press.

Josh monologues to Molly a long story about his time with Posy.

There's a sudden jump in time at the end. She visits her father in prison, having had a book published. He killed David (who'd been the cause of Molly's mother's death when she was 12. David had harrassed her so much that she overdosed - they'd complained to the police who'd done nothing). He killed her years before.

She visits her mother's grave. She tells her mother that she has a deal for a 2nd book and that she's leaving for a while, to Hydra (for its creativity). She leaves a copy of her book by the grave and turns away. She's still friends with Josh/Jack but he's not going with her. At Hydra she realises who killed Posy.

The final section is Posy's first-person PoV of her last night.

The "father" twist was one twist too much, and I didn't like Posy's section at the end. The mix of thriller, comedy and insights into difficulties of being a woman in a man's world mostly works.

Other reviews

• Mike Finn (The Murder After The Night Before‘ isn’t the light, witty but dark book that the cover and the title had led me to expect. It’s a hard-hitting thriller that delivers the full emotional impact of murder, sexual assault, revenge porn/shame porn, all aggravated by the main character’s habitual binge drinking, low self-esteem, grief and constant simmering anger. The book feels witty at first because humour is one of the techniques that Molly Monroe uses as a coping mechanism. ... I felt that the last two [chapters] dropped the ball. )
• Rebecca McCormick (I did find the mystery compelling, but I thought some of the reasons Molly had for either doing something or not doing something were stupid at times and just for plot reasons. ... Molly is mostly likeable but a bit insufferable at times. I also found her ability to remember things she had had conversations about months ago really annoying and unrealistic. There are some plot holes which I did find annoying. And there's a couple of glaring mistakes - for instance once around the timing of Lulu's disappearance, which I really felt someone should have picked up on - which frustrated me.)