"The Party House" by Lin Anderson

An audio book.

Joanne is visiting Greg in the Scottish Highlands. He's a gamekeeper on an estate. They met only 10 days before in London. She has ulterior motives for staying. Lockdown is coming to a close. Greg's boss wants to re-open the Party House. During lockdown, some guests had helicoptered in and 6 locals had died from the resulting outbreak, so there's resistance to the re-opening. Caroline, the shopkeeper, is grumpy about Joanne's presence. Greg fears that he had carried the virus from the house to the village, Black Rig. In the night he hears vandals (relatives of the dead) attack the hot-tubs. Investigating, he sees a body in the foundations - a girl who'd disappeared 5 years before. Ilsa.

A group is arriving. Some were part of the group who were there at lockdown (he'd joined in with some of their sex activities).

Joanne's escaped from an abusive lover, Richard - a defence lawyer. She fears she may be pregnant by him. Greg's lied about who found the body. He has secrets about events from 5 years before. He and Caroline need to agree a story.

Joanne's pen name is Maya. She writes a blog. Caroline tells her that she was pregnant by Greg when Ilsa died. She had a miscarriage. Greg finds out that Joanne is pregnant. Greg's arrested for rape and murder then released. Caroline has offered Joanne a bed for the night then a lift to the airport - she's found out that Greg's semen was on Ilsa's body. Greg goes in the wood with a rifle. Joanne follows him.

A forest fire starts. Greg, a volunteer fire-fighter, helps stop it spreading to the Party House. Richard arrives. Joanne tells him it's his child to stop him hurting her, and tries to escape. Then she says it's not his child. He attacks her. Greg saves her and says he'll marry her whoever's baby it is. Caroline confesses to the accidental murder of Ilsa - she was jealous. She returns to London and attacks him on her blog for his attitude to women.

The author's choices about teasers and secrets don't quite work for me. Consequently the reporting of too many of the facts seems unnecessarily delayed.

Other reviews

• literarytreats (The setting was wonderfully depicted; ... But the thriller itself just wasn’t very thrilling.)